IT isn’t deja vu. It’s just twice as nice.

Prodigiously, 28-year-old attorney-at-law Jordan Jarrett was the class valedictorian at Norman Manley Law School (NMLS) in 2018 and also for the Master of Laws Class of 2022 at Columbia University, a private Ivy League research institution in New York City, USA.

At NMLS he told the story of his parents who are public servants originally from rural Jamaica, and at Columbia he shared that while some in this world fight daily to survive, others thoughtlessly thrive.

Jarrett, who grew up in Kingston, is the only Jamaican and Caribbean native to have been admitted to Columbia Law School’s Master of Laws programme 2021-2022, after being granted the Smith Family Scholarship — a tuition scholarship given to students from under-represented countries who have a track record of academic excellence.

“I was admitted to Columbia University’s Master of Laws programme in 2021. That year I received various types of offers to study at Harvard University, Columbia University, New York University and the University College of London. Columbia was an obvious choice for me. Columbia alumni are world-changers and that’s what I’m meant to be,” he told the Jamaica Observer.

“I was completely unaware that I would’ve been the only Jamaican or Caribbean-born student admitted to study in the Master of Laws programme. While there I felt the weight of being an unofficial ambassador for Jamaica and the region. I did my best every day to show people the best that Jamaica has to offer, not just in culture and humanity but also in academics,” he continued.

Luckily, he said, he had a classmate in the programme who was of Jamaican parentage, and a few other Jamaican-born students in the undergraduate law programme who proudly bore Jamaica’s standard with him.

“Together we showed the world, every day, that Jamaican people are excellent in every way. My family celebrates me everyday; I hardly go a week without meeting or interacting with someone who tells me about how proud my family is of me.”

Jarrett grew up with his parents and two siblings, and is the youngest of his parents’ three children.

He attended Campion College where he became head boy, president of the school’s choir, president of the Inter School Christian Fellowship, and a Students’ Council representative.

At Campion he realised that he was torn between law and economics but eventually chose law.

“I did my law degree at UWI Cave Hill. If ever I was unsure of my choice, all uncertainty left me there. I was exposed to some of the most passionate and creative minds — in teachers and students — that I have ever come across, people who were intent on using the law as a tool for positive social change in the region,” he recalled.

After he graduated from Norman Manley Law School in 2018 Jarrett worked as a judicial clerk to the chief justice and justices of appeal of the Eastern Caribbean Supreme Court for three years.

“I assisted the court with determining some of the most serious issues that had come before it in several decades. One of my supervisors, the Honourable Louise Blenman who is now the chief justice of Belize, saw the potential I had and encouraged me to go further, to challenge myself and do a master’s degree,” he told the Sunday Observer.

And that’s how Columbia University came into the picture, which he said was difficult for a number of reasons.

“The programme was very rigorous, the winter was brutal, and it was difficult being so far away from my family and friends back in the Caribbean. I expected those challenges,” he said.

“What I didn’t expect was being underestimated by some of my classmates. At the end of a lecture, after I answered several questions posed to me by the professor, a group of students approached me to congratulate me for doing well in class, and to indicate that they didn’t expect that from me. I realised then that I was not only up against a tough programme, but also against people’s unfounded expectations of me as an ordinary-looking black student from the Caribbean. I kept my chin up and was never deterred.”

Eventually, he was named a Harlan Fiske Stone Scholar for outstanding academic achievement.

“The honour is the law school’s second-highest academic honour, and is reserved for students with outstanding academic achievement. I knew I was working hard and expected to be recognised, and was very pleased when that recognition came,” Jarrett told the Sunday Observer.

“I believe that the strong training I received at the Norman Manley Law School and the belief in me by my family, teachers, and mentors along the way have taken me this far. Many people my age don’t believe they can do what I’ve done. Without the support of my family, teachers and mentors I would never have made it to this point. They saw me in places doing things that I couldn’t have conceived. I am the product of their support and mentorship — and I hope to show others in Jamaica and elsewhere that the world belongs to us just as much as it belongs to anyone else.”

At present, Jarrett has a mixed public law and appellate practice in Jamaica, and plans to continue his work in Jamaica and the region by, “adding my voice to serious issues of law and policy with a view to contributing to the betterment of our people”.

Most recently he presented at the joint select committee of Parliament, convened by the minister of legal and constitutional affairs, on the constitutionality of the Bail Act, 2022 and was shortlisted for the Prime Minister’s National Youth Award for Excellence in Academics.

“I achieved quite a few things at Columbia. I received the Parker School Certificate of Achievement in International and Comparative Law, was one of the school’s United Nations externs, and I even got to perform at the school’s Commencement Ceremony attended by Hilary Clinton and over 40,000 other attendees. But, I hold most dearly to my heart my success at UWI and at the Norman Manley Law School.

“I would not be the person I am today without the training and mentorship I received at both those schools. I graduated from UWI among the brightest in the region, with first class honours, and from Norman Manley Law School I was able to graduate as the top male student in the class of 2018 and received 10 academic awards at graduation. My UWI and NMLS training made navigating the world of law easier. I wouldn’t be the lawyer I am today without it.”