While taking a law and courts class from Judge Rick Westmoreland during her first semester at Weber State University, rising 3L Lex Magnusson realized she was more interested in earning a law degree than pursuing a Ph. D in psychology like she’d originally planned.
“In that first class, Judge Westmoreland told everyone to stand up and say what they wanted to be when they grew up. ‘If you say you want to be a lawyer, I’m going to talk you out of it,’ he said. I stood up and said I wanted to do forensic psychology,” Magnusson recalls. “About midway through the semester, he pulled me into his office and said, ‘What do you think about going into law?’ Here was this guy trying to get people to not go into law, and now he was trying to convince me. It was something I’d never even thought about before, but he pushed me to think about it. He saw something in me that I didn’t. He is still my mentor to this day.”
When the COVID-19 pandemic hit, Magnusson’s husband was able to work from home. She realized she had the opportunity to go back to school, something she had long dreamed of doing.
“I have four children, and two are significantly disabled. My middle son has autism, and my daughter has Down syndrome and autism, so I stayed home with them,” she explains. “I earned my undergraduate degree in psychology and then, with Judge Westmoreland’s encouragement, applied for law school.”
Not wanting to uproot her family, Magnusson was hoping to attend Utah Law. However, she was accepted at other law schools and had to weigh her options.
“It was still Utah for me because of the small class sizes and my desire to work in the state. The U has such an outsized reputation, and I had friends who’d attended who could not say better things about it. I decided the S.J. Quinney College of Law was the right place for me,” she says.
On the first day of orientation in 2024, Magnusson remembers the dean and other leaders put an emphasis on class members becoming friends and getting to know each other.
“I was 41 at the time, and I thought, ‘I don’t have a lot in common with kids that are 20 years younger than me,'” she says. “I’m so glad they encouraged us to connect, because I felt like we all became a real group of friends. They are people I can reach out to. This rising generation is incredible, and being with them every day pushed me to do more.”
She also appreciates Utah Law’s faculty and staff and their willingness to help.
“Assistant Dean Brian Burton and Natasha Carlton have been amazing to me as I’ve had things come up. My daughter needed a surgery and was sick a lot during my first year, and my husband’s health took a dive this last semester. The semester before that, I was in two car accidents within three weeks (neither of which were my fault) and was dealing with a concussion during finals,” she recalls. “To have that support all the time has been incredible. I don’t know if I would have gotten that anywhere else.”
During her first year of law school, Magnusson was speaking to Professor Emerita Jensie Anderson about a job in the summer. When Anderson learned Magnusson was interested in family law, she connected her with Virginia Sudbury, who founded a family law firm.
“I’ve done three externships with them and have been able to learn so much more about the practice of law by actually being able to do it. Having Professor Anderson connect me with Virginia and the new firm owner, Alison Satterlee, has been life-changing. I get to work with the kind of lawyers I want to become.” Magnusson says.
Family law appeals to her because she can help clients through some of the hardest—and sometimes best—times in their lives.
“To be able to calm someone down, tell them what the law can do and how we can help them is really rewarding. My firm also does private guardian ad litem work, so they serve as attorneys for kids in divorces and custody battles,” Magnusson explains. “These kids have been put in the middle of adult situations and need someone to be their voice. The attorneys at the law firm I work for are incredible advocates and examples to me, and I can’t wait to be a part of that program.”
Magnusson also looks forward to being apart of the adoption process for families and is interested in special education law because of her experience advocating for her own children.
“There are lots of holes in Utah’s special education system. It needs a lot of work, and I’m excited to be able to do that with kind of some more force than I’ve had as a parent,” she says.
In fall 2026, Magnusson will graduate and plans to continue working in family law. She will also be pursuing the alternate path to licensure, which requires 240 hours of supervised legal practice, the Multi-State Professional Responsibility Exam, and a written performance exam administered by the Utah State Bar.
“Getting the experience and helping with clients now is rewarding, and I don’t have to take two months off to study for the Bar. The alternate path to licensure requires all these classes I might not have taken otherwise, so I’m still getting that education. I can continue my career without any interruption,” she says.