This months Student of the Month is a former student of the TOEFL, GMAT, and Legal Writing courses. Victor Birioukov has been taking Legal and Preparation courses with us since 1999 and now all the studying has finally paid off. Victor is now studying at Northwestern University in their LL.M. program. But how did he get there?

Victor graduated from the Law Faculty of MGIMO receiving an LL.B. in 1997 and a "Specialist" degree in 1998. Since graduation Victor has worked in two ILFs Gorodissky & Partners, where he was an Assistant Patent Attorney and Sojuzpatent where he was a trademark attorney. While working Victor decided to increase his knowledge of law. And so he decided to take some courses in English. Preparing to possibly enter into B-school Victor took three courses with Pericles TOEFL, GMAT, and Legal Writing. After these courses he went on to get a 280 on the TOEFL, an extremely high score for the TOEFL. After the test he went on to apply to some Law Schools to study for an LL.M. Northwestern accepted him and he decided to go there to study. The impressive part is still to come.

Victor, on top of going to one of the best Law schools in the world, also gets to study there for free, since he won the Muskie Fellowship Program, administered by the Open Society Institute. Victor was one of the few to get this prestigious fellowship so congratulations on that Victor. Also congratulations on that TOEFL score, way above the average. And congratulations on getting into Northwestern. But what is to become of Victor when he graduates?

Victor plans on coming back to Russia and working for an ILF. Which one still remains to be determined. He will be at Northwestern for 9 months with the option of staying for an additional three to six months, depending on whether he sits for the bar exam or gets an internship in America. So we will just have to wait and see what Victor does. Victor Pericles wants to wishe you the best this year and hope that all goes well and we will see you in a year.