code: public static Locale getLocaleFromString(String locale) throws LocaleException {
  		for(Locale l : Locale.getAvailableLocales()) {
  			if(locale.toLowerCase().equals(l.toString().toLowerCase())) {
  				return l;
  			}
  		}
  		throw new LocaleException();
  	}
docs: takes a desired locale input string, iterates through available locales, returns a locale object
  @param locale String to grab a locale for, i.e. en_US, en_GB, de_DE
  @return Locale to represent the input String