From Sheep Shows to Appellate Law

Life lessons learned while showing sheep at the Shawano County Fair in northeast Wisconsin have helped propel 2L student Lindsey Roloff, recipient of the Judge Floyd E. Thompson Memorial Scholarship at Northwestern Pritzker School of Law, toward her likely career path in appellate litigation.

As a third-grader attending the fair in Shawano, her hometown of 9,000 people located about 45 minutes west of Green Bay, Roloff told her father she wanted a sheep—and he obliged her. They started showing the sheep at the county fair and later, with help from her sisters, at the Wisconsin State Fair and at the national level in Kansas City, Mo.; Grand Island, Neb., and Louisville, Ky. “It ended up turning into this national, family endeavor, from what started as just me saying I wanted a sheep,” she says.

Although Roloff and her family were very successful at the state and national level in winning awards, when they came back home to the Shawano County Fair, they could never seem to beat certain competitors, who often seemed to know the judges. “They won the show over and over again,” she says. “Obviously, in the sheep world, there’s not an appellate process to fix any sort of biased judging that you experience.”

Fast-forward to her internship two summers ago, where Roloff helped on a case that reached the Wisconsin appellate court system. While reading the transcript, she couldn’t possibly imagine how the lower-court judge had come to their decision. The attorney working on the case said to her, “We got hometowned.”

“That really resonated with me,” Roloff says. “The judge knew this exact piece of property and was very familiar with the parties involved. And it’s likely that they just wanted a certain party to win and made sure that happened.”

Of course, there is an appellate process in the legal world. And “in the legal system, there’s a lot graver consequences at stake than a purple ribbon at a sheep show,” Roloff says. “So, I appreciate that there’s a way to fix any kind of injustice that might occur in a lower court.”

Roloff entered St. Norbert College in De Pere, Wis., as a business major, but she added a double major in political science after meeting with the school’s pre-law advisor, and she also participated in the pre-law club and mock trial team. Then, after her sophomore year, Roloff landed an internship at Conway, Olejniczak & Jerry, the largest law firm in Green Bay.

“So [my legal interest] kind of snowballed during my time in undergrad,” she says. “It was the internship that really made me want to go to law school. … I thought it was fascinating how lawyers could have such a tangible impact on people’s lives and help them resolve issues that are huge to them.”

Roloff continued to work at the Conway firm in subsequent summers and part-time during the school year, returning as a 1L summer associate in 2024. The firm handles plaintiff’s and defense side litigation; business-related transactional work; and family, employment, and landlord-tenant law. “They do a little bit of everything,” she says.

At Northwestern Pritzker Law, Roloff has most enjoyed taking Constitutional Law with Professor Erin Delaney, who has woven in her experience clerking on the U.S. Supreme Court for former Justice David Souter. Delaney “just made me think in a way that I hadn’t experienced in other law school classes,” Roloff says. “It was definitely the most beneficial thought exercise I’ve had.”

Trial Advocacy also has proved thought-provoking, Roloff says, “because we got to work with adjunct professors—actual attorneys and judges who came in and gave us very practical tips on how to improve our advocacy. And I think that kind of experience and exposure in a real-life setting will be very helpful as I start a legal career.”

Outside the classroom, Roloff has been serving as senior articles editor of the Northwestern University Law Review since January. She’s involved in article selection and has found it rewarding to read about different areas of law and connect with scholars.

“Especially as someone who’s first-generation [to attend college], it’s been a really helpful experience,” she says. “We’re starting the substantive editing portion, where we’re actually editing the professors’ articles, and it’s been really rewarding to have a voice and realize that I’m fully capable of helping these experts who have years and years of experience.”

This summer, Roloff will intern at Kirkland & Ellis in Chicago, splitting time between the litigation and bankruptcy restructuring groups—the latter inspired by a bankruptcy-focused moot court competition in New York City last year, where attorneys from Kirkland served as mentors. “That’s definitely another interest that I did not expect going into law school, but it combines litigation and business,” she says, referring to her bachelor’s degree in business administration.

Without the Judge Floyd E. Thompson Memorial Scholarship, Roloff says she would not have been able to enroll at Northwestern, and she appreciates being able to focus on her classes and activities without having to worry about how to pay tuition. “Having a scholarship has just allowed me to take advantage of all those opportunities,” she says. “It’s also allowed me to see my own worth as a first-generation student and understand that I’m worthy of being here—somebody wants me here. And I think that has made all the difference.”

Going to a school like Northwestern in a city like Chicago has opened doors that Roloff would never have imagined. “Being in an environment that has opened doors to Big Law jobs, to classes taught by federal judges—Northwestern has it all,” she says. “I’ve been able to experience almost everything that I’ve wanted to while being here. And I just don’t think I would have had those opportunities at another school.”