Scott MacLatchie

Scott MacLatchie is a Partner in our office in Charlotte, North Carolina, and he has nearly forty years’ experience as a trial attorney, law enforcement officer, and consultant to law enforcement agencies.

Scott has served as trial counsel for numerous law enforcement agencies on both coasts, and has defended class action litigation involving conditions at the Los Angeles County Jail, the nation’s largest municipal jail system. He regularly handles cases in both federal and state courts at both the trial level and on appeal. In addition to his active litigation practice, Scott also serves as police attorney for six police departments in the Charlotte region. He also appears as an on-air commentator for Charlotte’s ABC affiliate on high profile law enforcement topics.

Scott served 42 years as a reserve deputy with the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department before retiring in 2021. Scott spent most of that time in patrol assignments, including a 22-year stint at LASD’s Special Enforcement Bureau, working saturation patrol in target areas countywide. Due to Scott’s background, he is often engaged to educate and provide counsel to law enforcement leadership and frontline officers on liability issues such as the use of force, day-to-day operational matters, and the challenges posed by First Amendment auditors and other constitutional activists. To address the latter topic, Scott developed a training class, “Dangerous Crossroads Ahead: The Intersection of the First and Fourth Amendments.” Since 2016, Scott has presented this training to law enforcement and risk management audiences across the country.

Scott earned a Juris Doctor from Loyola Marymount University, where he was named to the Dean’s List and participated in the Moot Court Honors Program. He also holds a Bachelor of Science from the University of Southern California.

He is a member of the International Association of Chiefs of Police Legal Officers’ Section and was voted into the American Board of Trial Advocates (ABOTA).

Recognition

•The Best Lawyers in America , Best Lawyers, 2026
•Awarded in: Product Liability Litigation - Defendants
•Award of Excellence for Legal Services, Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department

Presentations

Scott is the creator of the “Dangerous Crossroads: Constitutional Law for Law Enforcement” class series, which he presents and trains on throughout the United States. Other select presentations are below.

•Dangerous Crossroads: Dealing with 1st Amendment Auditors
CMPD Crime Intel, MAIN Conference; April 25, 2024
•Don’t Go Viral: First Amendment Auditors and How to Handle Citizen Interactions
North Carolina League of Municipalities, CityVision; April 24, 2024
•Dealing with First Amendment Auditors
Internal Affairs Investigators Basic School in Raleigh, NC; November 13, 2023

Publications

•Citizen Video Audits: Know Their Rights...And Yours
Police Magazine, October 2019
•Defending Good Police Shootings Against Trigger-Happy Lawsuits
American Bar Association’s The Brief: Tort & Insurance Practice Section, Summer 2001

In the Press

Citizen Video Audits: Know Their Rights...And Yours

January 13, 2020

Written by: Scott MacLatchie, Esq. You have probably watched some of the first generation of videos that popped up on social media sites and on YouTube showing officers dealing with people using smartphones to film them. In these videos, the officers would often order the people filming them to stop, and/or they would awkwardly try to