 Because of concerns about the war with Sweden, his parents sent Hocher to Innsbruck in 1635.There, the local Hofkammerpräsident Johann Michael von Schmauß took care of him and brought him to the famous lawyer Johann Baptist Drächsel at Bozen (Bolzano), where Hocher acquired a reputation as a lawyer, although he soon fell out with Drächsel.In 1642 he was awarded his doctorate in law from Freiburg.