Marco Langer decided he wanted to earn an LL.M. at an American law school in the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic. Marco had been a partner at the firm he joined after earning his LL.B. at Curitiba University Center in his hometown of Curitiba, Brazil, since 2009. “My career was going great, and I was in my comfort zone, but I wasn’t happy or challenged. When the pandemic came, I thought, ‘Life is short and you only live once,’ and decided to apply to LL.M. programs,” he recalled.
In addition to broadening his knowledge of international law, Marco wanted to change the focus of his practice from real estate litigation to corporate transactions. “I wanted a program where I could focus on business law,” he said.
An attorney friend from Curitiba, Paulo Henrique Lopes Furtado Filho, LL.M. Class of 2022, put Vanderbilt on his list of law schools to consider. “Paulo was a big incentivizer for me,” Marco said. “We kept in touch while he was studying at Vanderbilt, and he was telling me how great the business law faculty were at Vanderbilt and how well things were going.”
Marco also wanted a school with an international reputation for corporate law where he could connect with professors and other students. “Vanderbilt was highly ranked and offered the Law and Business track. The other law schools I applied to were larger, and I knew I’d have an opportunity to get to know professors and other students at Vanderbilt,” he said.
Marco earned the Law and Business certificate. He credits his fall-semester class in Corporations and Business Entities from Professor Amanda Rose with providing a solid foundation for his other business law courses. “Corporates and Business Entities really helped me to get an essence of the American Corporate Law System, and it also really helped me with the business law classes I took in the spring semester. The class was hard, and the subject was dense, so I really had to study had. My English and my ability to read and understand improved that semester,” he said.
Marco appreciated the intellectual rigor and challenge of taking classes with J.D. students. “I’ve never studied this much in my whole life, but I really enjoyed it because the classes were interesting and well-taught,” he said.
Marco moved to Nashville with his wife and family and rented a house near campus. “The city is fantastic. It’s the perfect size—not too big and not too small—and it has a great quality of life,” he said.
He is willing to spend another year in the U.S. with his family, focusing on Mergers and Acquisitions, before returning to Brazil.