Alisa Petersen, a third year student at Penn State Dickinson Law in Carlisle, is the recipient of the third Louise Hoffmeyer-Overmiller Scholarship, a $6,000 annual award created by Dickinson Law alumnus William F. Hoffmeyer, Hoffmeyer & Semmelman LLC in York and Shrewsbury.
The scholarship was founded in honor and in memory of Hoffmeyer’s daughter “Louie,” whose vigor, good humor and inner drive were on display daily as the law firm’s office manager and vice-president and title officer for the York Abstracting Company.
The Louise Hoffmeyer-Overmiller Scholarship is presented to a 3L Dickinson Law student who possesses a grade point average of no less than 3.3, financial need and a “fire in the belly” for the law.
At Dickinson, Petersen is involved with Project SHARE and the Driver’s License Restoration Clinic and has previously participated in Wills for Heroes clinics, the 1L Mock Trial Competition, the Volunteer Income Tax Assistance program and the Bethesda Mission Expungement Clinic.
Petersen currently serves as a certified legal intern for MidPenn Legal Services, where she represents clients seeking protection from abuse orders in court (with attorney supervision) including negotiating settlements and conducting hearings. This scholarship will help fund her work at MidPenn so that she can continue representing indigent clients in need of legal help over in the fall. In addition to her current internship, Ms. Petersen has held positions as a judicial intern for Judge Mary Jane Bowes, Superior Court of Pennsylvania and a legal assistant at the Law Offices of Kreisher & Gregorowicz.
Petersen received a B.A., summa cum laude, in Political Science: Legal Studies from Bloomsburg University.
The Louise Hoffmeyer-Overmiller Scholarship is administered by the Pennsylvania Bar Foundation, the charitable affiliate of the Pennsylvania Bar Association. The Foundation’s Named Scholarship Program works with individual attorneys and legal organizations to realize unique charitable interests that are consistent with the Foundation’s mission to improve the public’s understanding of the law and to strengthen the network of attorneys working to ensure that Pennsylvania’s most vulnerable citizens have access to the legal system, regardless of their ability to pay. For more information, visit www.pabarfoundation.org.