Luis Cervantes Castillo

As a practicing attorney in Mexico City for six years, Luis Cervantes Castillo ’09 LL.M. amassed ample experience settling disputes among corporations both foreign and domestic. “Since I started working, I’ve always interacted with American and with international clients,” says 26-year-old Castillo. “If you are familiar with the American way of doing business, you can do business with anyone in the world.”

To build on that familiarity, Castillo has used his time in the LL.M. program at Columbia Law School to become even more fluent in American law. He took American legal history courses that offered insight into the origins of the U.S. common law system. He also refined and expanded his legal skills to better serve today’s market—mixing classes on securities and capital markets with those on bankruptcy and reorganization.

“Columbia Law School prepares you for real life as a practical lawyer,” Castillo says. “Most of the professors participate in real-life legal matters. Having professors like that keeps you in touch with what’s really happening.”

Castillo rounded out his year at the Law School by organizing a trip to Ixtapa, Mexico, for some of his fellow LL.M. students. After taking the New York bar exam this summer and before beginning his new job at Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher in New York, Castillo and his wife will celebrate their one-year anniversary with a European tour that will include stops in Paris, Istanbul, and Dubrovnik, Croatia.