Thea Homan ’27

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Thea Homan is discovering how she can make a difference through the work she enjoys most: researching legal questions, finding the right words and helping shape policies that touch people’s everyday lives.

The third-year student at Widener University Commonwealth Law School is interning this fall with Pennsylvania’s Legislative Reference Bureau, exploring an interest in legislative drafting that emerged during law school. Next semester, she’ll build on that experience with an internship at the state Senate Democratic Caucus.

“The broad theme of public service has always been there, but I think that I have been narrowing it down through work experience,” Homan said.

She’s already seen what happens when she puts that commitment into action for her classmates. Helping plan last year’s Public Interest Auction, which raises money for students pursuing public interest work, remains one of her proudest law school experiences.

Homan played a major role in organizing the event. Seeing it come together and knowing what the money would make possible for fellow students made the work worthwhile.

“It turned out so beautifully and raised a lot of money for my fellow students,” she said.

That sense of purpose has guided Homan from her hometown of Loganton, a north-central Pennsylvania community of a few hundred people, to Penn State and now to law school in Harrisburg.

A longtime interest in history led her to major in political science and minor in history at Penn State. The more she learned about government, the more she wanted to be part of its work. Public service appealed to her, and as she explored careers, she noticed that attorneys held many of the jobs that interested her.

Law school became a way to bring those interests together.

Widener Law Commonwealth also offered something personally important to Homan: the chance to build her future in Pennsylvania. She wanted to stay close enough to family to feel connected while having room to establish a life of her own.

Once on campus, she found plenty of people to share that experience with.

“I made friends almost instantly, and I am still making friends each year,” she said.

Those friendships became part of her everyday support system. Classmates shared notes, joined her for office hours and helped one another keep up with the demands of law school. Her professors brought both expertise and a love of teaching to the classroom, and she appreciated how readily she could turn to them for help.

An email about the Law and Government certificate program soon gave her another way to get involved. Homan brought her roommate to an information session, where she learned about the Law and Government Institute and its student society.

She began attending events, then stepped into a leadership role as the society’s treasurer. Today, she serves as vice president.

Through the institute’s events, Homan has met government attorneys who are generous with their time and candid about their career paths. Those conversations have helped her learn about the field, build connections and imagine where her own interests might lead.

“I recommend to all students to show up at the events and just talk to people,” she said.

Her internships have given her more ways to explore those possibilities. After her first year, Homan studied abroad in Rome while completing a research and communications internship with Human Rights International Corner. During her second year, she interned at Stark Law Group LLC in Lemoyne, drafting motions, demand letters and briefs for the workers’ compensation and employment law firm. The following summer, she worked as a certified legal intern with the Central Pennsylvania Law Clinic in Harrisburg.

Across those experiences, she has developed a clearer sense of the work she wants to pursue. Legal research and writing have become a particular draw, and legislative drafting has introduced a career possibility she hadn’t considered before law school.

On campus, her involvement reaches well beyond the Law and Government Student Society. Homan is the Student Bar Association’s bar associations chair, secretary of OUTLaw and treasurer of both the Federal Bar Association student chapter and Phi Alpha Delta. She is also a dean’s fellow and a member of the Public Interest Auction Committee.

When she reflects on who has shaped her law school experience, Homan sees the contributions of an entire community. She credits the small things professors, classmates and others do each day that help her learn and consider a new perspective.

Her advice to incoming students is practical: Get to know how you learn. Finding study methods that worked for her took time, and she encourages prospective students to explore those habits before starting law school.

As graduation approaches, Homan is bringing together what she’s learned in classrooms, internships and campus leadership roles. Her interests have become more specific, but the purpose behind them has stayed consistent.

“Hopefully, I will be a government attorney and can work towards establishing policies and regulations that help individuals every day.”

Interview was conducted in Fall 2026.