PARIS — Even though she has only been on the job for a month, Oxford County’s newest prosecutor, Alexandra Winter, already has a full caseload.

She was thrown into the deep end of the pool pretty fast, but that’s probably the best way to learn, the young attorney said in an interview at her new Oxford County Superior Court office Monday afternoon.

An Orono native, Winter lived and worked in West Africa and New York City before returning to Maine to practice law two years ago.

She was hired earlier this winter as a new full-time assistant district attorney, with an explicit focus on prosecuting domestic violence and sexual assault crimes.

Her position is funded through a nearly $782,000 grant awarded to Safe Voices, the regional anti-domestic violence nonprofit last December.

Although she wanted to practice criminal law, she didn’t expect to become a prosecutor, Winter said. Her previous experience has been representing indigent defendants.

Even though the position is on the other side of the courtroom, it still fits with her commitment to help people who might otherwise fall through the cracks.

“I thought it was going to be a difficult transition,” Winter said. “But I’m actually finding that this work I feel not only personally suits me, but I feel I fit here more than I do in criminal defense, amazingly.”

After graduating high school from Orono, Winter attended Brandeis University, outside Boston, where she studied politics and legal studies. Her studies sparked a deep passion for public interest law and fed into her post-graduation move 2007 to Mauritania, the huge West African nation, as a Peace Corps volunteer.

For two years, Winter worked in a small community as an agricultural-forestry volunteer, living with a family and assisting local farmers to improve crop yields and develop local markets. 

During her Peace Corps tour, Winter took the Law School Admission Test and was accepted to a program at the City University of New York in Queens in 2009.

She initially thought she would stay in New York, but shortly after graduating in 2012 she returned to Maine and “fell in love with it all over again.” She worked as an assistant at a Yarmouth law firm until she passed the Maine Bar last October.

Soon after, she jumped at the opportunity to work at the DA’s office in Oxford County.

“I really wanted to go into criminal law,” Winter said, “I saw this posting, and I just said, ‘Wow, it fits all the way around.'”

That the position was so focused on prosecuting challenging domestic abuse and sexual assault cases is particularly important to her, Winter said.

The level of importance and passion that local nonprofits, law enforcement and the DA’s office is putting into addressing domestic violence through investigation and prosecution is “amazing,” and she is glad to be a part of it, she said.

“I went into law and I went into the Peace Corps originally because I really wanted to help people. I wanted to work with people who didn’t have their rights recognized,” Winter said.

“I’m really finding that this position allows me to do that — to fight for victims that wouldn’t have a voice otherwise.”

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