Catherine Betancourt graduated from Queen Mary in 2018 with an Immigration Law LLM. She currently works as an Associate Lawyer at Janice Flynn & Associates, a law firm in central London that focuses on US immigration law.
I chose CCLS because after finishing law school in the United States, I knew I wanted to live in London and continue my education. CCLS was one of the only schools worldwide that provided an LLM in Immigration Law, which was my main area of interest in the law. CCLS also had an excellent reputation and a great variety of courses to choose from during my program, allowing me to learn from multiple areas of the law and earn a specialised but well-rounded Masters degree.
It's difficult to choose just one, but I really loved the orientation at Cumberland Lodge. It was such a beautiful place and allowed me to meet students on other programs within CCLS, some of whom remain my friends to this day!
Being a member of the CCLS community means being part of a huge network of people worldwide, who are excelling in their field and always willing to lend a hand. My experience at CCLS was excellent, and I learned a great deal from professors such as Professor Prakash Shah, Lecturer Niovi Vavoula, and Professor Geraldine Van Bueren QC, all of whom taught me about new areas of the law that I was previously unfamiliar with and very much enjoyed learning about.
One of the things I loved most about CCLS was the access to incredible networking opportunities, conferences, and events where we could mingle with some of the most knowledgeable individuals in the legal field worldwide. One opportunity in particular stands out, and that is the internship scheme that the Immigration Law program at CCLS provided. Through this scheme we were able to apply to work at different law firms and organisations that specialised in Immigration Law and work there during the school year or after our classes had ended. I had the opportunity to work at Kingsley Napley LLP, one of the leading law firms in London, in their immigration department. I learnt a great deal about UK immigration law and made invaluable professional connections.
I would highly recommend CCLS for any prospective student who wishes to expand their knowledge of law and their understanding of how the legal world interacts with other sectors of the economy and society at large. CCLS offers a massive variety of specialisms, more than I've seen in other schools I researched, allowing students to truly focus on particular areas of the law that interest them. In addition to the broad range of courses offered by excellent professors, who are also often working as lawyers in addition to their teaching duties, CCLS also offers great networking opportunities and internship programs. These allow students to put their theoretical knowledge to use in the real world.