New Mineral County Attorney hired

The search for a new Mineral County attorney is over, as Ellen Donohue last week accepted the position. Marcia Boris left the job on Sept. 2 and moved to Libby to become the deputy county attorney for Lincoln County. Since that time, County Commissioners have been in the process of hiring a new attorney with several interviews having taken place over the past few weeks. Donohue is from Butte and will begin in January.

During the search for Boris’ replacement, the position was temporarily filled by Missoula attorney Matt Erekson, during the first part of September. However, he resigned in late October because the job ended up requiring more hours than he had available.

This prompted the commissioners to hire Kristine Akland who worked as the deputy county attorney part-time for Boris after she graduated from the University of Montana’s law school in 2014. She was laid off, along with five other county employees, in July as the result of county budget cuts. Akland currently has a practice in Missoula and agreed to step in for a couple of months until the position could be filled.

Akland said she did not apply for county attorney because she lives in Missoula County and a requirement for the position is to live in Mineral County and she doesn’t want to move.

Since Boris left, there has been a back log of cases in the justice court, Akland said. “They were lucky to have Melinda Steinebach here to help,” she said.

Steinebach started to work as a legal assistant in January. After Boris left, she helped to keep the work flow going while Erekson filled in. Though she doesn’t have a law background, she taught herself how to do some of the paperwork.

After Erekson left, she was the only one in the office and found herself drowning in paperwork, “it was really stressful,” she said, “if I didn’t love this job, I would have probably quit.”

Akland said the work Steinebach was doing are things a paralegal usually does, “she doing an incredible job. She took it upon herself to learn how to process the paperwork.”

Once Akland came on board, the workload got easier since she was familiar with the job. Though there is still a lot of backlogged cases she is getting caught up on. Akland will continue to fill-in until the new county attorney begins her new duties in January.