Founded in 1995, LAC is currently the largest non-governmental legal aid organization operating in Cambodia. LAC is the only legal aid organization to maintain a significant and permanent presence in rural areas, where 80% of Cambodia’s poorest population resides. 

LAC envisions a just and fair Cambodian society, where everyone enjoys equal rights before the law. LAC’s mission is to provide quality legal aid and human rights education to the poor people of Cambodia. With a commitment to entrench the rule of law within the Cambodian legal system LAC ensures access to justice, promotes respect for the law and human rights and seeks legal and judicial reforms where appropriate.

LAC has four programs that it delivers:

•    Child Justice Program;

• Women Justice Program

•    Land Law and Natural Resources Program; and

• General Legal Aid Program;

LAC’s program activities focus primarily on education, advocacy, legal representation, and capacity building. The LAC programs also advocate for judicial reforms through workshop discussions amongst legal representatives and judges to identify concerns about the criminal justice system. These concerns are then used to propose meaningful judicial reforms to the government for courts in the target regions.

LAC is active in working with other CSO’s as it continues to play a significant role in fostering the rule of law in Cambodia, primarily through casework, but also by lobbying for law reform, advocacy on human rights, legal training for members of the legal profession and justice community and in other cross-cutting concerned matters. LAC is committed to building the capacity of its lawyers, its partners, its staff, and students to improve the quality of its legal work and its knowledge of law in the rapidly evolving Cambodian legal system.