This week’s Micronesian Monday Feature might be familiar to some readers. We’ve gotten to know Marshallese and Puerto Rican Jasmine Muneca Botlang Henry the CEO and Founder of Lazy Jays LLC. This week, we get to learn more about Jasmine, the maritime lawyer, criminal prosecutor, corporate lawyer, plus who knows what’s next. 

“There’s crime in the ocean. Drugs, stealing of sea cucumbers,” Jasmine Muneca Botlang Henry said, speaking over video conference.

A woman of the Pacific, Marshallese-Puerto Rican Jasmine Muneca Botlang Henry has always loved the ocean. She lives in the Marshall Islands now but she also lived in New Jersey, going between the two places, crossing the oceans on her trips.

The ocean also managed to work its way into Jasmine’s professional life.

She comes from a family of lawyers.

“My grandfather was a judge and my mom was a lawyer but now she’s also a judge,” Jasmine said. “She was at the attorney general’s office for five years before that.” 

Jasmine said she’s always wanted to be a businesswoman though when she was younger, she wasn’t quite sure what that meant. Her mom reminded her that having a background in law would prove to be an asset in her business endeavors. Jasmine agreed and in her junior year as an undergrad that she decided to go to law school.

_jasminnie_

A post shared by Jasmine Loeak Henry (@_jasminnie_)

“Because you'll understand the law, you'll know how to read things, and write things differently than what normal reading and writing entails and it definitely gives you a lot of discipline,” Jasmine said. “My law background definitely is probably the reason why I'm able to have a semi-successful-ish, so far, business at a young age.”

After graduating from law school in 2018, Jasmine went home to the Marshall Islands and started out as a coastal legal officer. She’d draft coastal regulations and learned a lot about the ocean and the Law of the Sea. She felt it was too specialized a practice to be pursuing so early in her career so Jasmine pivoted.

She became a criminal prosecutor but also worked with corporate law. 

“And I still worked with the Law of the Sea stuff because there’s only two lawyers, me and one other lawyer, that kind of specializes in that area,” she said. “You would think there’d be more right? Living in the ocean but there’s not a lot of marine, maritime lawyers here in the Marshall Islands.” 

She learned a lot during her time as a criminal prosecutor but she’d always wanted to serve her community in other ways. While she was a criminal prosecutor, Jasmine also started working on Lazy Jays Cafe, which opened at the beginning of this year. 

lazy.jays

A post shared by Lazy Jays (@lazy.jays)

Lazy Jays Cafe is the fruit of Jasmine’s creative, artistic side and her dreams of becoming a businesswoman.

The cafe is also adjacent to what is now Jasmine’s law firm. After opening the cafe, she became a private attorney.

It’s clear to anyone who speaks with Jasmine, that she is set on helping others. She speaks softly but with conviction, a quiet determination surrounds her.

When she saw the unique blend of coffee shops in Australia, Jasmine thought, We need this back home. After she opened her cafe, working full-time, she continued to practice law. As she said, law is “a way (she) knows she can contribute to the society positively.”

And she said she’s always wanted to practice corporate law, but not necessarily with the aim of aiding big corporations. 

“When I say corporate law, I mean I want to help people start businesses, and help them with legal requirements because I know a lot of great businesses here fail because they don't know how to follow all the different legal requirements, they don’t know how to meet the tax requirements and stuff,” she said.

“So that’s something that I wanted to help people with. And that’s also why I wanted to make my own business so that I have that experience to be able to help others practically.” 

Jasmine Muneca Botlang Henry is the embodiment of the aphorism: a rising tide lifts all boats.

Rise on.◉

For more about Jasmine and Lazy Jays Cafe, also a product of Jasmine Henry’s genius, click here. ¹

I truly enjoyed my conversation with Jasmine and I knew I couldn’t write just one story about her, which is how this piece came to be.  I hope you enjoyed it.

Thank you for reading. If you liked this, consider subscribing to The Husk. You’ll get weekly stories about Micronesian makers, creators, and professionals sent to your inbox for free. Do you know a Micronesian we should know about? Email thehusk@substack.com.

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Law and lattes: How Jasmine Muneca Botlang Henry serves her island community

In this week’s Micronesian Monday Feature we get to know the brilliant Jasmine Muneca Botlang Henry, the Marshallese and Puerto Rican CEO and founder of Lazy Jays Cafe. Once in Majuro, head toward the bridge, drive over it and keep going until you see a blue building on the left, that’s the attorney general’s office. But you’re not looking for that. You…

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