There was no question what Heidi Engel was going to be when she grew up.

“From the time I was a little girl, I said I wanted to be a lawyer,” she said.

The profession just appealed to her, for whatever reason.

“No one in my family was an attorney,” she said. “It’s always what I wanted to be.”

The law became a career which took the Boone County native from a private attorney through about five years in Frankfort as an attorney for the labor cabinet, general counsel for the Justice Cabinet and the state auditor’s office, and executive legal counsel for the state police.

For the last 22 years, Engel has been a private attorney and an assistant commonwealth’s attorney in Clark County with her law partner Charles Johnson. As prosecutors, she and Johnson handle all the criminal cases with pass through Clark Circuit Court and lead the grand jury proceedings.

Engel said she got to know Johnson through the Kentucky State Police. One of Johnson’s friends owned a building in downtown Winchester, which he renovated. In 1997, Johnson and Engel decided to start their own private practice.

Initially, it was only a part-time practice for both, she said. One day, Tom Smith, the elected commonwealth’s attorney at the time, called and was looking for another prosecutor to work in Clark County. Engel said she and Johnson said yes, and they have continued ever since.

This year, Engel added the rocket docket program in district court, which expedites some felony cases, to her plate along with her civil work.

“Right now, it’s about two-thirds criminal and a third to the private practice,” she said. “It ebbs and flows through the years.”

Through the last two decades, Engel said the case volume has grown tremendously from 54 indictments in 1997. So far this year, about 85 have been returned, according to court officials.

The vast majority, she said, are for drug violations or are drug related.

The drug of choice, she said, has nearly come full circle where heroin is one of the dominant drugs again.

“There was (widespread) use of powder cocaine and marijuana,” she said. “Very soon after that we saw the insurgence of crack. today the drug of choice is heroin, fentanyl and meth.”

In the midst of those were years when illegal pill abuse dominated the headlines.

Engel joined Clark County’s drug court program when it was started in 2005, which offers a way for people to get help and structure to break their addictions.

“Judge (Julia) Adams started the drug court program here,” Engel said. “We were the second in the state. I am grateful our judges … have all been so committed to it. If two people get sober, it was worth all of it.”

While drug cases are the most plentiful, those involving abuse or loss of live are always the most difficult, she said.

“Those are the ones that never leave you,” she said.

To balance her work, Engel turned to yoga several years ago after reading an article about The Om Place in Clark County.

“I thought that sounds like an amazing place,” she said. “I was fortunate to have a law partner who accommodates that.”

Two years ago, Engel decided to become a yoga instructor as well. Doing so meant clearing the schedule for one Friday, Saturday and Sunday a month for six months.

“I’d been saying it for five years,” she said. “I said, I’m going to do it and we’ll schedule around it.”

For those six months, it meant not scheduling meetings, trials or other things that would interfere, she said. In the end, she completed the program, and continues yoga today.

“The body needs movement and the mind needs stillness,” she said. “I’m a lot more zen outside of my work here.”

At the end of the day, Engel said her work is about helping people find hope.

“There’s hope for tomorrow to be better,” she said. “Sometimes closure brings hope for people. Sometimes those pleads are as heavy on us as they are other people. Sometimes it might be for a victim seeing a defendant locked up. Sometimes it’s a defendant, without a specific victim, getting help. Sometimes it’s doing what’s necessary for the community so be safe. That’s hope for a community.”