Asian Law Center

After earning an LL.M. in Asian and Comparative Law from the University of Washington School of Law in 2004 as a Fulbright Scholar, Tung Thanh Ngo, who also holds an LL.B. from Ho Chi Minh City University (1995), returned to Vietnam and continues to contribute to the development of the legal profession Vietnam. Known as a visionary leader in government and business circles, Ngo is a strong advocate for an adversarial justice system and steadily pushes to adopt greater transparency and consistency in the application of law within Vietnam’s developing legal system. He returns to the UW Law School Asian and Comparative Law Program to pursue a Ph.D. in 2009.

Since 1999, Ngo has been the Managing Partner of the biggest Vietnamese law firm in Vietnam – VILAF-Hong Duc (Vietnam International Law Firm). Under his leadership, VILAF has transformed from an affiliate of Clifford Chance to an independent commercial firm in Vietnam.

Alice Stokke traveled to Hanoi in May 2006 to conduct a 360 degree review of investor protection reforms in Vietnam. Her research included interviewing respondents from a broad spectrum of organizations, including drafters, practitioners, government officials, the international organization officials who oversaw the project and domestic and foreign end users. Sponsored by USAID and Booz Allen Hamilton in cooperation with the World Bank, the final report, co-authored by Veronica Taylor, has been used by the World Bank in its 2007 and 2008 Doing Business Report. The Doing Business project of the World Bank Group provides objective measures of business regulations and their enforcement across 181 economies and selected cities at the subnational and regional level.

During 2005-2006, Professor Veronica Taylor served as the contracts and company law expert on a team of commercial law and trade professionals tasked with conducting an evaluative study for the USAID Support for Trade Acceleration (STAR) Project (with Booz Allen Hamilton) in Southeast Asia. In September 2005, Professor Taylor and team members traveled to Vietnam and conducted a comprehensive Diagnostic of laws, public and private institutions, and social dynamics that pertained to commercial law and trade facilitation environments in Vietnam.

STAR Vietnam is a project funded by the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) to provide demand-driven technical assistance to Vietnam in implementing the U.S.-Vietnam Bilateral Trade Agreement, the World Trade Organization agreements and the Trade Investment Framework Agreement in cooperation with the Office of the Government of Vietnam. Since its inception in 2001, USAID/STAR has helped Vietnamese counterparts adjust or develop almost 100 major laws and regulations.