Master of Laws students

Georgia Law LL.M. Students Take Professional Development Trip

Last month, the University of Georgia School of Law Master of Laws (LL.M.) class of 2025 traveled to Atlanta for a professional development trip organized by the Dean Rusk International Law Center’s director of international professional education, Dr. Laura Tate Kagel. Students were accompanied by Dr. Kagel, International Professional Education Manager Mandy Dixon, and Center Associate Director Taher Benany.

The group of foreign lawyers was hosted by the law offices of Arnall Golden Gregory, LLP for lunch and a lively discussion with legal practitioners. Abe Schear, a partner in the Real Estate and Leasing practices at AGG, offered the students sound career advice and discussed how his involvement with the International Bar Association helped him grow the firm’s international practice. Theresa Kananen related her career journey and described her current role as partner and co-chair of the Payment Systems & Fintech industry team, offering compelling illustrations of the types of cases that arise in her practice area. Glenn Hendrix, a partner in AGG’s Healthcare Group and the founding president of the Atlanta International Arbitration Society (“AtlAS”), recounted the challenges and advantages of dispute resolution in a global society. Teri Simmons (J.D. ’89), a partner and chair of the firm’s Global Mobility practice and an adjunct professor of law at UGA, and her team members Dorothea Hockel and Naina Bishnoi (LL.M. ’24), explained how they help foreign businesses avoid legal pitfalls when bringing their operations to the United States.

Professional development trips are among many opportunities offered to Georgia Law LL.M. students to foster career connections and gain insight into potential career paths. 

To learn more about the LL.M. program, click here.

Six Master of Laws (LL.M.) students selected as Graduate Editors of the Georgia Journal of International and Comparative Law

Six Master of Laws (LL.M.) students from the University of Georgia School of Law’s class of 2025 were selected to join the Editorial Board of the Georgia Journal of International and Comparative Law as Graduate Editors. The students are: Sara Dorbahani, Michael Faleye, Neethu James, Samuel Kuo, Dzmitry Liasovich, and Ramakrishna Rut Palepu.

As Graduate Editors, each LL.M. student conducts citation checks and writes a Comment or Book Review on the legal topic of their choice. The Graduate Editors further facilitate the Journal’s commitment to “including a diversity of perspectives, experiences, and backgrounds within [its] membership,” according to the Editor in Chief, Jasmine Furin (J.D. ’25).

The Georgia Journal of International and Comparative Law is a preeminent forum for academic discussion on current international subjects. From its inception in 1971 as a student initiative supported by former U.S. Secretary of State and Georgia Law Professor Dean Rusk, the Journal features work by legal scholars and practitioners and student notes written by Journal members.

LL.M. student N’Guessan Kouame contributes to World Bank report

University of Georgia School of Law LL.M. student, N’guessan “Clément” Kouame, contributed to the most recent World Bank Report for Women, Business, and the Law (WBL) released on March 2. He served as a panelist contributor for Côte d’Ivoire, West Africa, reviewing the legal framework and landscape of the country regarding the improvement of women’s rights and women’s empowerment.

Women, Business and the Law (WBL) is a World Bank Group project collecting data on the laws and regulations that affect women’s economic opportunity. Since 2009, WBL has been enhancing the study of gender equality and informing discussions on improving women’s economic opportunities and empowerment. This is the second year in a row that Kouame will contribute to the WBL’s annual report. He provides sources, laws, and regulations to corroborate his answers and make recommendations and comments.

From the report’s overview:

Women, Business and the Law 2024 is the tenth in a series of annual studies measuring the enabling environment for women’s economic opportunity in 190 economies.

This edition of the report updates the Women, Business and the Law 1.0 index of eight indicators, structured around women’s interactions with the law as they begin, progress through, and end their careers: Mobility, Workplace, Pay, Marriage, Parenthood, Entrepreneurship, Assets, and Pension.

Women, Business and the Law 2.0 sets a new frontier for measuring the environment for women’s economic inclusion across three pillars: legal frameworks, measuring laws; supportive frameworks, measuring policy mechanisms to implement laws; expert opinions, shedding light on experts’ perception of women’s outcomes.

Women, Business and the Law 2.0 also introduces two new indicators: Safety, measuring frameworks addressing violence against women, and Childcare, measuring frameworks for the availability, affordability and quality of childcare.

Data in Women, Business and the Law 2024 are current as of October 1, 2023. By examining laws and policy mechanisms affecting the economic decisions women make as they go through different stages of their working lives, as well as the opinions of experts on the legal environment for women’s economic inclusion, Women, Business and the Law makes a contribution to policy discussions about the state of women’s economic opportunities.