LOGAN — Hocking County has a new prosecuting attorney, who has the hopes of turning around an office that has been through the wringer in recent years.
Jennifer Graham, initially appointed by the county commissioners to take the place of resigning prosecutor Ryan Black, was elected Wednesday by the county Republican Party to fill the rest of Black’s term, through the end of 2024. The decision was unsurprising, as it came on the heels of Graham’s winning the contested Republican primary last month.
“The voters picked a good candidate, and we have no intention of going against that decision,” said party chair Michael Harris last month, after Black, amid a lawsuit by former staffers over his workplace conduct, decided to step down.
The party’s appointment of Graham, made by its central committee, was quick and unanimous, Harris said after Wednesday’s meeting. Barring a write-in campaign, the new prosecutor will run unopposed for the permanent position in November’s general election.
As far as experience goes, Graham is no newcomer to the law: she has been an attorney for going on 12 years, in both private practice and public service. It’s been the fulfillment of a passion she’s had dating back to when she was 11. In high school, as her interest in the law developed, a personal experience took her in the direction of becoming an adoption attorney.
Graham began her career after law school in the regulatory department of Limited Brands in Columbus, but soon after that moved into private work, where she served in Jackson County under Justin Skaggs, now a juvenile court judge in the county.
“When you’re a new lawyer coming up, it’s important to rely on the expertise of people more experienced than you,” Graham said, citing “too many positive influences” to name just one from her early career.
Later on, Graham started her own private practice, working in juvenile law and criminal defense. Her experience on that side of the law is diverse. She worked as a guardian ad litem, an attorney that is appointed to provide children legal representation when they have no parent or legal guardian to serve their interests.
In addition to her extensive experience with court-appointed representation, she also represented victims in Civil Protection Order (CPO) claims. The latter gave her a special appreciation for the work of victim advocates, a department in the Hocking County Prosecutor’s Office that she hopes to make robust in the coming weeks and months.
“While (the prosecutor’s) role isn’t to represent victims, it is a huge role to make sure they are notified and given a voice, a priority in our office that isn’t just about following Marsy’s Law,” Graham said.
Graham views the breadth of her experience in private practice as a form of public service, and a precursor to her later interest in moving to the prosecutorial side of the law. Last year, she began as an assistant prosecutor in Vinton County under Bill Archer, where she worked up until her appointment in Hocking County.
“It’s a small county,” Graham said, referring to Vinton, “but a big endeavor.” One of her and Archer’s biggest milestones while she was in the office came last month, when they secured an 18-count guilty verdict against a man accused of sex crimes against children.
Moving into her role in Hocking County, Graham has a bigger staff at her disposal, but said she is intent on remaining hands-on. It’s something she sees as necessary to “changing the culture” in the prosecutor’s office.
“The people who work here have done a good job keeping it afloat, and its vital for me to re-earn their and the public’s trust in this office,” Graham said. “I can’t speak personally to what was going on, but there’s unfortunately been a lot of negative attention, and the previous administration seemed very hands-off.”
As a born and raised resident of Hocking County, whose roots in the area date back to her great-grandparents, and who is now raising her own family here, Graham views this as the perfect next step in her career — to bring her work and experience home, and make a positive impact on the community she’s spent nearly her entire life in.
“I feel, with the timing, that I was called to run for this position. I’ve built my career around public service, and Hocking County needs change in a lot of places. So it was a natural segue for me.”
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