By Eduardo Zermeno in College Days, Feature Story on May 11, 2024
Lexzie Hassemer, junior, was accepted to be an intern for Lex International where she will be flying across the Atlantic Ocean to lawyer it up.
Lexzie Hassemer, a junior at Ripon College, is active in a variety of clubs and is the president of Alpha Delta Pi. Although Hassemer may enjoy these leisurely activities, her love for the law goes deeper.
Hassemer is majoring in political science and is on track for the pre-law program where she aims to attend Marquette or UW-Madison for law school.
“I have a personal connection to family law. I’m a child of divorce, and my parents didn’t necessarily have the cleanest separation. I want to be able to give people the opportunity that the judge gave my dad when they were going through their custody hearings.” she said.
Lexzie Hassemer holds a bouquet of flowers. Photo Courtesy of
Lexzie Hassemer.
Hassemer’s desire to become an attorney is rooted in her past experiences, but other factors caused her to want to study law.
“I’ve also got a cousin who is a paralegal in the family law area as well. And she’s told me some stories where I’m like, ‘How is this allowed?’ It’s wild how some of those stories play out and I just want to be able to be an advocate for the people who aren’t normally given a voice,” she said.
Professor Steve Sorenson affected her decision towards her future in becoming an attorney as well, Hassemer explained.
All of these factors led to her stumbling across a legal internship on Snapchat.
“The internship is a three-week program that’s for international law available to pre-law students,” Hassemer said. “I got more information and I talked it over with my dad, as well as a few other people, and thought this would be something that would be a really good resume boost for law school applications.”
The program will provide intense training abroad after the spring semester
“I’ll be spending three weeks in London this summer,” Hassemer said. “The way that the program works is every week you go to a different law firm and receive mentorship from an attorney that has a United States Juris Doctor background. So for the first three days of the week, I’ll be meeting with them in the firm, getting mentorship, and doing projects. And then on Thursday you’ll have a legal excursion to parliament and watch them hear a case, and then on Fridays, we do a cultural experience excursion.”
Hassemer details some of the highlights of this opportunity and what she looks forward to experiencing.
“I love to travel. I have always wanted to go to London since I was in high school, and just never got the chance to. I think it’ll be really awesome to be there and I’m excited to get real-world practical experience towards something that I want to do in the future.”
Hassemer also stated that even though she is worried about traveling a great distance, she looks forward to, “[being] able to connect with people who already have a common interest with me because they want to be lawyers.
After graduation, Hassemer looks forward to working for a larger firm.
“I would probably spend quite a few years working at a bigger law firm, just to get standing and become financially capable of affording my own practice in family law. That is a long way from now, but that would be a future goal one day.”
Hassemer gave her best piece of advice for those who are considering going into law or those who maybe haven’t considered taking this career path.
“I think one of the good things about going into law is that even if you don’t know fully if you want to pursue it, a Juris Doctor is such a versatile degree. With that degree, you can work in a variety of different industries. That’s kind of the beauty of law,” she said.
Individuals interested in pursuing a career in the field of law or who would like an opportunity to experience something like Hassemer, reach out to the Ripon Pre-Law Society at [email protected] to find similar opportunities.