County attorney comments on first year

Prior to her role as an elected official, Hot Springs County Attorney Jill Logan was balancing life as a stay at home mom while being in private practice and helping her husband on their ranch. Her private law practice was primarily estate planning and administration, with a focus on a lot of farm and ranch succession planning. 

Now she has spent more than one year in her role as County Attorney and Logan said that her first year has flown by. “It’s just been a whirlwind, just going. We’ve been running hard.”

Logan talked about some of the challenges she faced in her first year. She said there were, “Some frustrations just in general by not being as familiar with criminal law and wanting to accomplish things that now I have been more experienced and educated in to know there are different nuances and hurdles and things like that. It’s hard to explain. But wanting to serve the people here and do them right and actually be effective. There have been some things I think out of the box a little bit. Some of my ideas won’t fit into the criminal justice system. But for the most part, I feel we’ve worked really hard to do what is right for the people here.”

Regarding her successes for the past year, she talked about how hard she and her staff have worked together as a team.

“Honestly, I feel we’ve had a very really fast first year and we have accomplished a lot, but I would be remiss if I didn’t mention that my staff has been just top-notch. I have an incredible staff, I don’t know what I have done to deserve them. They make me look good.” 

“We’ve made a lot of plea deals that I think have been extremely fair on both sides. It’s hard, you can’t please everybody. But we try really hard to do what is right, both morally and ethically. I feel we’ve got a really strong team up here, where we use more of a team approach. It seems to be going well.” 

Logan talked about some of the learning and understanding she acquired while being in her new position. She said, “I have done very little criminal law prior to coming into this position. So that’s been one of the learning curves with me is the various penalties and things. Stuff that guys have done for a long time just have memorized. It’s been a new area of law for me. And I actually enjoy it more than I anticipated it. I like being back in the career mode. I enjoy and do a lot with the Commissioners, the civil side of things, and the various agencies. I enjoy that, I love contracts and paper and researching. That’s been good. I’ve never really aspired to be in the courtroom. So, that’s been a kind of a big thing for me. I did do a lot of juvenile work before being county attorney, so I was familiar with that aspect. Curtis has been really experienced and he’s been awesome to work with. He’s helped me learn too. We work as a team here.”

Regarding what Logan finds to be important in her role, she said she’s “trying to be effectively and efficiently serve the people of our community. I mean, we love it here. I absolutely love it here. We’ve put roots down and raised our family here. We want this to be the best place to raise a family. And whatever I can do in my role as County Attorney to help build on that and grow, that is what is important to me. One of the reasons why I chose to throw my name on this was I felt like if I want to be here and benefit from living here, it’s time to give back and invest in this community both time-wise and through this job. We try to do that and make it fair and honest. We try to treat everybody the same no matter who you are or what you are. We just want to do a good job and serve the people. 

For her overall goals in the coming year, she said, “I would like to keep learning and to increase efficiency. I’m kind of business-minded. We operate on a budget. Of course, trials are expensive. I like to work, but I don’t want to have to do more than what’s necessary to accomplish the same goals.”

Logan closed her thoughts and said, “I am appreciative and blessed to be in this position and we’re working hard to serve Hot Springs County.”