Attorney Profiles

Scott devotes his practice to the defense of local governments, their elected and appointed officials, and their employees. He has represented public entities in cases arising under the federal civil rights statutes and Pennsylvania's Political Subdivision Tort Claims Act, including zoning and land use regulation disputes, employment discrimination and personnel retaliation claims, law enforcement liability suits, school student discipline and education disputes, and personal injury actions arising out of alleged dangerous conditions of publicly-maintained instrumentalities.

A defense litigator since 1985, Scott has represented public sector defendants and their insurance carriers in hundreds of cases in the state and federal courts of Pennsylvania. He has counseled counties, cities, townships, boroughs, municipal authorities, transportation authorities, and regionalized police departments throughout western Pennsylvania. Scott has provided formal presentations to insurance organizations and public entity associations on topics related to governmental risk management and the effective defense of claims brought against public entities.

A native of the Pittsburgh area, Scott joined Marshall, Dennehey, Warner, Coleman & Goggin at the inception of its Pittsburgh office in the summer of 1993. He became a shareholder in the firm in 1994, and he has served as the branch office managing attorney of the Pittsburgh office since 1995. Since 2004, he has served as a member of the firm's Board of Directors. In 2005, the publishers of Law & Politics and Philadelphia Magazine identified Scott as a "Pennsylvania Super Lawyer" in the field of civil rights litigation.

After receiving undergraduate degrees in history and business management from West Virginia University in 1981, Scott proceeded to obtain his Juris Doctorate degree from the University of Pittsburgh School of Law in 1984. He served for one year as law clerk to the late Judge John F. Rauhauser, Jr. of the York County Pennsylvania Court of Common Pleas. He then returned to Pittsburgh to work as an associate for a general practice firm, where he began to practice in the area of federal civil rights defense in 1985. In 1988, he became associated with another Pittsburgh defense litigation firm and devoted his practice entirely to defense litigation prior to joining Marshall Dennehey in 1993.

In addition to more than two decades of litigation experience in western Pennsylvania, Scott provides his clients with a unique focus on managing the legal, political, and public relations challenges faced by local governments in defending the liability claims brought against them.

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