New Mercer County Assistant Prosecutor gets to work

Jun. 20—princeton — Bare walls and an empty desk greeted the newcomer, but becoming part of the Mercer County Prosecuting Attorney's Office was making his office a new hub of case work.

Brandon Austin, the county's newest assistant prosecuting attorney, is no stranger to the area.

I grew up here. I was born in Bluefield, but I've lived in Princeton pretty much my whole life other than going to law school in Morgantown," Austin said in his new office. "I graduated from Princeton High School in '07. I went to Concord, graduated from there in 2011 and then I graduated law school in 2015 from WVU and I came back to the area, started working with my dad at Saunders & Austin. It would have been nine years I had been there this August, so I was there quite some time. It was a great experience to be able to work with him."

Austin said that leaving the law firm where his father, Lane Austin, and partner Henry Sanders worked was a hard decision, but he wanted to do something new and see legal work from the prosecution's side. His father was the reason why he decided to practice law.

"I think from the time I was in kindergarten," he replied when asked why he decided to become an attorney. "That was just what my dad did. I just kind of wanted to follow in his shoes. Made it really easy for me when it came time to decide what I wanted to do. Like I said, by kindergarten I already knew, but in school they're really not asking you that much at that age, but by middle school they're asking you 'you need to think about your career and what do you want to do, and it was just easier for me because I already knew. My friends and even my brothers were 'oh, I'm not sure. Maybe this, maybe that.'"

Austin said he didn't grow up not knowing what he wanted to do with his life.

"It's not that I can't understand. I just never experienced it, which made it a lot easier for me," he said. "And of course I didn't know what he really did when I was 5 or 6, but it was just looking up to him."

While practicing law at Sanders & Austin, Brandon Austin did court-appointed criminal work as well as non-court appointed representing criminal defendants.

"That was probably the bulk of what I did as far as my time was spent," he said. "I did personal injury work on the plaintiff side, then I did just a variety of other little things like representing people for domestic violence protective orders or preparing wills, just general litigation things like little cases that come up that aren't your typical kind of case. So I did most things other than family law. I didn't do that. Property. And I didn't do abuse and neglect which is like CPS case work before the courts, but it was mostly personal injury and criminal defense."

Coming to the prosecuting attorney's office offers an opportunity to see court proceedings from a different perspective. Prosecuting Attorney Brian Cochran had been talking to him about making the move.

"I think it was just being on the other side representing criminal defendants for nearly nine years," Austin said about moving to prosecution work. "I just wanted to see what the other side was like; never having been an assistant prosecutor, do something different, I guess. Brian had been talking to me for quite some time. We came across each other whenever he was in private practice. I was working with my dad. He did a lot of civil defense work, car accident cases, that sort of thing. I would represent the plaintiff. There were a couple of cases where we would be on the other side. He would be representing the defendant, I would be representing the plaintiff, so I knew him from that.

After being elected as the county's prosecuting attorney, Cochran spoke periodically with Austin about coming to the prosecutor's office.

"At first, I really didn't see myself making the transition over to here," Austin said. "I thought well I'll entertain the idea, maybe think about it for a little bit and then quickly came to the decision no, I don't think I want to do that. But then I think as time went on, he talked to me more and then one of my good friends Josh Lawson, who works here as well, talked to me. He was in private practice previously as well, so once he came over here, he talked to me about coming to work for the prosecutor's office."

"It was a hard decision," he said. "It was something that I figured was a good opportunity. I might as well make the transition and see what it's like, and I like it so far."

Becoming an assistant prosecutor is giving Austin an opportunity to experience procedures he knew about, but never did himself. Being at the recent Mercer County Grand Jury was one new experience.

"There's a lot of cases where I've been on the other side of things, so it's not completely new or anything," he said. "It's just a new role, doing things from the other side. And there's things like the grand jury that I never did. You're not allowed to be in the grand jury proceedings unless you're on the grand jury or you work for the courts or you're a prosecutor. If you do criminal defense work, you never get to see that sort of thing, so that's completely brand new to me because I was never involved in it."

"Most things are things I've seen from the other perspective, and it is different to be in there and be in a hearing and be on the prosecutor's side because there are so many different things you do on this side than on the other side," Austin said. "But I think it's a fairly easy transition given the experience I have doing criminal defense work."

Austin is now serving in the court of Circuit Court Judge William Sadler and covering hearings for attorneys in other courtrooms.

"Right now I'm in Judge Sadler's court but it's subject to change when Ryan Flangian has been elected to replace Judge Swope because Judge Swope retired," he said. Whenever he comes to the bench, I don't know exactly what sort of cases he's going to take and that sort of thing and how that might effect where I'll be, but right now the plan is I'll be in Judge Sadler's court."

People have asked Austin if he would like to become the chief prosecutor some day.

"Maybe I'll end up doing that one day. Right now it just kind of seems like I won't say no, never do that, but it kind of seems like a distant thing," he said. "Maybe at some point later on down the road. But I never saw myself coming to the prosecutor's office period, so that just goes to show you never know what will happen. and I'm still at this point I've been here a little over a week, and there are a lot of things the chief prosecutor does different. There's a lot of duties the chief prosecutor has above and beyond just being there for the state for hearings and that sort of thing. There are a lot of duties outside of that."

Mercer County Prosecuting Attorney Brian Cochran said he had been hoping to recruit Austin.

"Brandon is going to be a big asset for our office, hopefully for a long time," Cochran said. "He is great person from a wonderful family here in Mercer County, plus he's an excellent attorney with quite a bit of trial experience. He is very well respected by our judges, by our law enforcement officers, the defense attorneys and of course our prosecutor's staff. I've personally been recruiting him since I was elected as prosecutor four years ago and I'm very glad that he has decided to come help us represent the people of Mercer County.

"We've built a great team of lawyers and staff here and my goal has always been to get this office to be the very best law firm in southern West Virginia for many years to come," Cochran said.

Contact Greg Jordan at gjordan@bdtonline.com

Contact Greg Jordan at gjordan@bdtonline.com