The City of Jefferson is getting ready for a new attorney to take the place of an individual that served for almost three decades.

David Morain is replacing long-time City Attorney Bob Schwartzkopf who has served for 29 years. The 1999 Jefferson-Scranton High School graduate earned his undergraduate degree from Simpson College and then graduated from Drake University Law School in 2006. He has since been working as a transactional lawyer at the Hoyt/Morain Law Firm in Jefferson. 

Morain also served as city attorney for Scranton, Paton and Grand Junction, as well as previously worked for the City of Dana and Lanesboro from 2008-2016. He then served as Greene County Magistrate Judge from 2016 to September  2019. Morain talks about why he wanted to get back into being a city attorney, now for Jefferson.

“I think a lot of it has to do with the fact that this is my hometown and I care about it a great deal. I really want to be able to help anyway that I can. In this position I get to help people that are making decisions (for the City) for not only businesses but citizens, and be able to kind of lend my talents and my experience to be able to continue to push the City in the right direction.”   

Morain reflects on Schwartzkopf and the kind of city attorney he was for close to three decades. 

“The people of Jefferson just really owe I think a tremendous debt to Bob. He’s somebody I’ve known for a long time, and he’s a guy that I just have a tremendous respect for. I’m sure that there’s very few issues that a city could face, whether it be Boxholm all the way up to Des Moines that Bob couldn’t deal with. He’s very, very level headed, he’s just a very generous individual.”

Morain officially takes over as city attorney today.