Alumni

Meet Jaime Lopez (LL.M. ICL ’18) from Puebla, Mexico!

Jaime is a partner at DeForest Abogados®, a firm of 90 attorneys with offices in several locations across Mexico, and several international desks, including a German, Chinese, and French desk, as well as a New York and a Texas one.

So my name is Lia Gurchiani. I'm from Georgia, the country, not the state.

Tell us about your internship over the summer.
Okay, so I had an internship at the United Nations. I was interning at the Georgian Mission. So basically, what I would do is, I would attend high-level high level conferences. I would take talking points. And, at the end of the day, I would go back to the mission, and I would have to present it to the mission. My notes would be used for future negotiations between the countries.

With a bachelor’s degree in law from Saint Joseph University of Beirut, Alexandra Kibinian, a 2022 LL.M. alum from Beirut, Lebanon, set her sights on the United States, aiming to build a successful legal career. Her journey took her to UC Davis, where she enrolled in the LL.M. program and found the support and resources she needed to thrive.

With 15 years of experience in business and corporate law, Gianti “Ghea” Erbiana (LL.M. ’16) has led an impressive career and shown a commitment to serving her community and home country of Indonesia through her work.

"For me, a career in law is intellectually challenging and personally fulfilling. I have a personal goal of serving people, the community, and the nation through the profession of law," she explains.

Since graduating from UC Davis School of Law with her LL.M. in 2014, Paula Antunes has worked in-house as a senior legal manager for Reckitt Benckiser in Brazil, a multinational consumer goods group, overseeing the company’s contracts in the market and supporting her team in preparing and analyzing all the company’s contracts. Recently, Paula was recognized as one of Brazil's top in-house lawyers, being included in the GC Powerlist by the Legal 500.

When Emmanuel Agge arrived at UC Davis School of Law to begin his Master of Laws (LL.M.) degree, two things stood out to him: “The people, culture and environment were welcoming and all inclusive. Also, it was quite a surprise to see students and professors riding on bicycles on campus.” Those early impressions marked the start of an academic journey that, fifteen years later, he still remembers as the foundation for his career as a Managing Attorney in Los Angeles. 

I ended up choosing UC Davis mostly because of the diverse faculty. I’ve been taking classes with Professor Karima Bennounce, and I’ve also been doing research with her. It’s been really fulfilling for me to get back to doing something meaningful, helping people and contributing in some way to fighting injustice and standing up for those who are threatened.

I really enjoyed my studies in a program at King Hall called English for Legal Professionals. We had a great time interacting with classmates from different countries. The professor taught us practical skills for practicing law in English, which I found very useful as a non-native speaker.

The program helps you strengthen both your English and your legal knowledge before starting the LL.M. program.

Pursuing business law at UC Davis was one of the best decisions I’ve made in my life.

The knowledge I gained there is one of the main reasons I’m working in litigation today. My understanding of business and corporate law increased significantly because of the breadth of the coursework. At UC Davis, I was able to specialize deeply in subjects that I had previously studied only as individual courses back in India.