New assistant DA ready for job
As a newly hired assistant district attorney in Butler, 29-year-old Amanda Scarpo of Oakmont notices the degrees of control laws have over people in different parts of the country. During a trip to the West Coast, she observed a more relaxed approach. It was a shock to Scarpo, who was used to a stricter environment in the east.
Scarpo graduated from Seneca Valley High School and went to Indiana University of Pennsylvania with a major in criminology and a minor in prelaw.
While in college, she interned with the county district attorney office. In 2011, she began pursuing a law degree at Duquesne Law School. After graduating in 2014, she worked with Butler Judge Michael Yeager from 2015 to the end of January. On Feb. 2, she became the eighth district attorney in the county.
On Thursday, Scarpo discussed her new job.
Question: How does your experience help you in this job?
ANSWER: Having worked for a judge, it gives me a certain sense of fairness because I think that, as attorneys, there are rules to advocate, and I think that sometimes that might become too much a part of the process at a certain point. As in, keeping an open and fair mind is an important part of our job as is advocating (for a client).
Once I was here, I enjoyed the people here. I like being here. I grew up in Butler County. And so when I left law school and the position for the judge opened, I felt like it was a place I was comfortable with. A good place to start my career. I like the smallness of it too it's more intimate than somewhere like Pittsburgh.”
QUESTION: Do you feel like being argumentative is a good quality for a lawyer?
ANSWER: The law is the law and no matter how aggressively I argue one way or another, it won't necessarily change. I have the power to make the argument, but not to change the law. Being argumentative, too aggressive, it takes away from your argument. It doesn't serve me in the way I intend to practice.”
QUESTION: When did you decide to get into law?
ANSWER: I sort of knew, my mother will tell you, since I was a young child that I wanted to be an attorney, but probably I want to say that decision was hard and fast around the area of 10th grade, and I was just like, “Yeah, this is what I'm doing,” and there was no talking me out of it — and there was no changing my mind. It's what I knew I wanted and here I am.
QUESTION: When you first started law school, is this where you wanted to land? Did youhave any other interests?
ANSWER: Law school changes your perspective a lot. I developed a real interest in writing and research and that could be applied to any area of law, and I was open to sort of doing anything. At a certain point, I had some amount of interest in bankruptcy, but as a young lawyer you have all these options because there's no tract you're forced to think in law school because they mostly teach you how to think, so I guess when I left I had the whole world open to me as far as law is concerned, so let's just see where this takes me, and I liked the idea of clerking because it gave me a sense of fairness and you learn way more practicing, you know, learning on the job (through) first-hand experience.
QUESTION: What are you hoping will be the next step in your career?
ANSWER: Five years ago, I wouldn't be able to answer that question and say “here.” I'm open and don't want to put myself in a hole.
QUESTION: OK, so hopes?
ANSWER: I just want to be happy. I value a work-life balance, and so in obtaining that part of that is professional gratification. I don't know if I ever see myself leaving the practice of law permanently. I will always be working, but I don't know where that will take me in a couple years. I'm pretty open to whatever opportunities come my way.
QUESTION: What do you dislike about the job or what do you dread the most?
ANSWER: I imagine anything that would be emotionally charged would pull on your heart strings and, of course, no one looks forward to having to advocate in opposition to something that is emotionally charged, but unfortunately, the law leads you that way sometimes — and as I said before, we're not the lawmakers. And that doesn't just go for here. Anything that I would do professionally, I would never choose to be in opposition to something emotionally charged. I'm not a masochist. I'm sure when I get to that point, it will be difficult. Certainly.
