Phuong Le

Partner

Phuong Le is a Partner with & KLDP LLP. He has over 15 years of experience and leads a global EB-5 practice group with an emphasis on projects and EB-5 financing.

He draws upon an extensive background advising parties on all sides of EB-5 transactions, including Regional Centers, project developers, agents, and investors. Previously, he was in-house counsel for a large Southern California EB-5 Regional Center and real estate developer. There, he managed over $500 million in EB-5 financing and guided the company to several milestones, including approvals for their first 100 I-829 petitions.

His clients span the entire industry. He has successfully advised Regional Centers and businesses across the U.S. on over $2.5 billion in EB-5 deals, including commercial real estate developments, multifamily apartment buildings, charter schools, hotels, medical office buildings, and restaurant franchises. He has successfully advised on well over two thousand EB-5 petitions, including investors from China, Vietnam, South Korea, Russia, Brazil, South America, and Middle Eastern countries.

He works closely with businesses throughout the EB-5 financing process, including structuring debt/equity EB-5 offerings as part of a diversified capital stack, and coordinating complex review and structuring with securities attorneys, economists, business plan writers, and escrow banks.

He regularly consults businesses on forming and managing their own Regional Centers, including filing annual I-924A compliance reports and creating I-526 and I-829 templates to ensure Regional Centers and investors have consistent work product, including peer review of other attorneys’ EB-5 filings. He also lectures and trains other attorneys, migration agents, and professionals on EB-5 project structure and due diligence.

He oversees his firm’s Vietnamese practice group and hosted a weekly immigration TV special to serve the Vietnamese community in Orange County, CA. He regularly travels to Vietnam where he works closely with the firm’s business partners, agents, and investors. Finally, he also frequently shares his knowledge regarding EB-5 financing, project structuring, source of funds, and complex EB-5 matters with the industry as a lecturer, author, and as co-counsel/peer review for other EB-5 attorneys. He routinely serves on advisory committees for the industry including as a Member of the National EB-5 Committee for the American Immigration Lawyers Association and as a past Member of the EB-5 Best Practices Committee (2014 to 2015) with the Association to Invest in the USA.

Publications & Speaking Engagements

Memberships & Professional Organizations

  • AILA

    EB-5 National Committee

    2021-current

  • AdvisoryPanel

    American Bar Association

    2012-2014

  • IIUSA

    Best Practices Committee Member, Association to Invest i n the USA

    2014-2015

  • IIUSA

    U.C. Riverside – Design Thinking Advisory Board

    2019-2020

  • AILA

    American Immigration Lawyers Association

  • APABA

    Asian Pacific American Bar Association

  • SCCLA

    Southern California Chinese Lawyers Association

  • OCAABA

    Orange County Asian American Bar Association

  • VABASC

    Vietnamese American Bar Association of Southern California

  • NAPABA

Community Service

Awards

Education

  • J .D., University of California, Hastings

  • B.A., University of California, Irvine

Admitted to Practice

  • State Bar of California

  • United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit

  • United States District Court Central District of California

Television & Media

Representative Experience

  • From I-924 exemplar approval for $50 million EB-5 offering for a 300+ unit apartment complex in Southern California

  • $180 million in debt/equity EB-5 financing for 400,000 square foot mixed-use commercial real estate development in Orange County

  • EB-5/L-1 financing raises for multiple franchise and QSR restaurants