New Assistant State’s Attorney Hired
With the impending retirement of Wade Enget as Mountrail County State’s Attorney and Bill Woods as an assistant State’s Attorney at the end of the calendar year, a new face has joined the State’s Attorney’s Office. Assistant State’s Attorney Amber Fiesel is running for State’s Attorney in both Mountrail and Burke counties. Samantha Nelson was hired as the new Assistant State’s Attorney and assumed the role on August 31.
Samantha (Ledahl) Nelson graduated top of her class from Grenora High School in 2020. She says that her decision to go to law school actually started in high school. Her friends and teachers encouraged her based on her logic, competitiveness, and conversational skills. She decided to apply to UND. During her undergraduate years, where she majored in Criminal Justice, she saw how much she enjoyed criminal law, which solidified her goal to one day be a prosecutor.
As she entered law school, she was unsure about her choices until she attended a panel of attorneys in her first semester and met Rachael Mickelson Hendrickson from Rolla, ND. She interned for her the following summer, saying that she found her wide-ranging practice as the only attorney in the county fascinating. Her ability to foster a healthy work-life balance and become involved in the community was another facet of the job that Samantha really admired. This experience reinforced that small town life was indeed for her.
During her second year, Ms. Fiesel and Mr. Enget came to the law school in search of interns to fill their summer law clerk position. She went to the meeting and thought Mountrail County and Stanley sounded like a good place to be. It would be close to home and she had heard good things about the area (including Stanley being home of the infamous Whirl-a-Whip!). She applied and got the job for the summer. Her summer in working at the Courthouse reignited her passion for criminal law and she loved being in this small community. She got firsthand experience in a more well-rounded way than many of her classmates.
She completed both her undergraduate and juris doctorate degrees at the University of North Dakota, graduating from the latter Magna Cum Laude this past May. On September 2, she found out she had passed the bar in North Dakota and was recently attended the swearing in ceremony with her family in Bismarck on Friday, Sept. 25, where she was formally admitted to the State Bar of North Dakota.
She is happy to now have a permanent position. She says that everyone in the courthouse and community have been welcoming and accommodating, making the transition so much easier for her and her husband, Owen. She also likes that it is a short drive to her family’s farm in Divide County.
Samantha and Owen - a native of Westby, MT - purchased a home in Stanley in August. The two started their new jobs on the same day: August 31. He is working at Liberty State Bank in Powers Lake.
While it may be a little scary to lose the two longstanding assets from the Mountrail County office at the end of the year, she is eager for the challenges to come and excited to learn all that this new role has to offer.
One thing Sam wanted people to know is that practicing law in the real world is much different from how it is learned in law school, although she says she received an excellent education at UND Law. Especially as a newly minted attorney, the real-world and everyday implications of the job are one of the most rewarding parts of it. Getting to apply things she learned in school to actual cases (and on the flip side, seeing that sometimes things do not actually work in real life how she was taught they would) has been fun.
She says that Fiesel has been a great mentor and Enget has made a significant impact sharing his knowledge to help her along the way. She looks forward to serving as Assistant State’s Attorney to both Burke and Mountrail counties.
As she enters her new job, she says it is satisfying knowing that with criminal law, she is not just helping one person but everything they do is to benefit the community and area. She says it can be challenging to not be overly compassionate at times, but instead put on her “prosecutor hat”.
She looks forward to getting more involved in the community and meeting more people. She says that she and her husband have been having fun already and they enjoy supporting local businesses and going to sporting events.
During their free time, they enjoy cooking, traveling, taking road trips and spending time with their three-year-old dog, Dash. She says he is the light of their lives and they enjoy taking him for walks around town.
Nelson is excited for this new opportunity and feels confident she will grow into the role, while she and her husband strive to be assets to the community.