University of Virginia School of Law enrolled 40 students from nine countries in its LL.M. and Master of Law programs this fall.
Every year, lawyers from around the world join the school’s Graduate Studies Program. LL.M. students in this selective program have an opportunity to obtain legal education in the U.S., which may advance their careers back in their home countries or help them to pursue a career in the United States. The small program helps them to engage fully with peers and in the community.
Tzu-Chin “Chuck” Huang, a former Taiwanese police officer, is among this new group of students. Huang attended Taiwan police college and was a police officer for three years. He later became a lawyer despite being in a country where only 6% to 8% of law graduates pass the bar and his parent’s disapproval, according to a news release.
“When he decided to attend law school at National Taipei University, one of the top law schools in Taiwan, he knew his parents — both police officers themselves — would not approve of the sudden career shift. So he just didn’t tell them. ‘After six months passed, I let them know,” Huang said. ‘But now they are satisfied with everything.’ In fact, when Huang told them he had passed the bar exam, his mother cried tears of joy for days and couldn’t sleep. She was that happy,” stated the release.
The release also shared the background of Matheus Cruz, a Brazilian student in the program. Cruz works at Pinheiro Neto Advogados, one of the largest law firms in Brazil, but is taking a two-year hiatus to pursue an LL.M. degree.
“An LL.M. from an elite American law school is virtually a requirement to continue the career path at Pinheiro Neto, Cruz said, and one of the seven partners he works within the firm’s financial institutions group earned his LL.M. at UVA Law,” stated the release.
The last student the release highlighted is Augusto Nicolau who is also a Brazilian student in the program. Nicolau spent the past nine years working for financial institutions and is now the VP for JPMorgan Chase & Co.
Like many LL.M. students in the program, his goal is to learn the law language.
“We don’t have this requirement of ‘consideration’ in Brazil and in many civil law countries,” Nicolau said in the release. “I really didn’t understand what it was to have ‘consideration’ in the agreement. Coming here is a way to learn American lawyers’ language to be able to work effectively with them.”
You can find more about the Graduate Studies program at https://www.law.virginia.edu/graduatestudies.
