Hello! I am happy to say that I am the first LLM student to be a Jury of Peers blogger! Well, let me introduce myself first. My name is Yasmin Gomes and I am (only) 22 years old. I am originally from Manaus, the capital of Amazonas (yes, I lived in the woods!), in Brazil – that is where I got my bachelor's degree in Law. I graduated in Brazil in February 2018, and in July I came to Los Angeles to start my LLM at Loyola Law School.
My relationship with law school back in Brazil started early – I was only 16 years old when I got into law school. Just so you don’t get lost, I will quickly explain. In Brazil, we go from high school straight to law school – we do not have undergrad. Now that things make more sense, let me walk you a little bit through the last 5 years of my life.
First, I have to mention that I went to law school because I have always been passionate about criminal law, even before I knew for sure what that was – I just had a feeling. In my second year of university, I joined the Study and Research Group for the Inter American Human Rights System of the Federal University of Amazonas and started to work with and study human rights. That was when I noticed that criminal law and human rights have to go hand-in-hand: simply because criminal laws cannot be applied without observing the human rights of each person. And then I can say that, well, I found my place in the world.
When I was close to finishing law school, I discovered the LLM program and decided that I needed to do it. One thing led to another and… here I am, at Loyola Law School, living in Los Angeles and I could not have made a better decision and choice.