ABA ROLI Conducts First Ever Client Counseling Workshop in Cambodia

February 2008

On February 1, 2008, the ABA Rule of Law Initiative (ABA ROLI) and East West Management Institute (EWMI) held the first-ever Cambodia Client Counseling Skills Workshop at the Sunway Hotel in Phnom Penh, Cambodia. The event was co-sponsored by the Bar Association of the Kingdom (BAKC) of Cambodia. The workshop was designed to teach attendees the basic skills of client counseling, including active listening, questioning, empathy, issue spotting, legal analysis, problem solving and teamwork.

About 50 people were in attendance, including Cambodian law students and law professors from five local law schools as well as a number of Cambodian lawyers. BAKC Secretary General Lee Taysing and East West ManagementInstitute Chief of Party Herbert Bowman provided opening remarks. ABA Legal Education Advisor Steven Austermiller presented the workshop modules.

The workshop was highly interactive and used multi-media platforms. Inthe morning, the modules were presented using PowerPoint slides. The modules also included brainstorming and Q&A sessions. In the afternoon, Advisors Austermiller and Rajan Shaw (EWMI) presented a live demonstration interview. After that, students watched a DVD presentationon two large screens that showed the finalist performances from the actual 2006U.S. Client Counseling Competition. Following that, teams of Cambodianlaw students performed practice interviews with actors and cases provided bythe organizers.

The workshop was also designed to help the student teams prepare for the2008 Cambodian Client Counseling Competition later in the month, which is alsoorganized by ABA ROLI and EWMI.

ABA ROLI works in Cambodia as a subgrantee to the East-West Management Institute, under the USAID-funded Program on Rights and Justice.

For more information, contact Steven Austermiller <austermiller@ewmi-praj.org>