McKenzie Scott PC

Focus and practice areas

Based in San Diego, McKenzie Scott PC has practiced since 2000. The firm works across two main fields, civil rights and criminal defense, and it also handles personal injury and employment matters. Its clients come from across southern California. The firm represents them in both state and federal courts.

The four fields draw on related courtroom skills. Criminal defense and civil rights often turn on constitutional questions and on the conduct of police and jail staff. Personal injury and employment claims add a plaintiff-side practice to that base. In my opinion, the common thread is trial work, since every attorney the firm names holds the title trial attorney.

More than two decades in the same city gives a firm time to learn the local courts and the people who staff them. McKenzie Scott PC has kept civil rights and criminal defense at the center over that span. The two founders whose names are on the door still appear on the roster as trial attorneys.

The criminal defense work

On the criminal side, the firm handles federal cases and a group of white-collar charges. The named categories include money laundering, honest services fraud, and insurance fraud. The firm also represents people arrested at the border.

Federal criminal matters follow a path that differs from state court. Charges often begin with a grand jury indictment or a criminal complaint. Pretrial motions can shape what evidence a jury later hears, and the sentencing rules in federal court run on their own guidelines. A firm that names federal defense as a core area is telling clients it works in that system regularly.

White-collar and financial charges

White-collar cases lean on paper. Money laundering and honest services fraud both rest on documents: financial records, emails, and the trail behind a transaction. The defense often centers on what a person knew and intended at the time, which makes those documents the main issue in the case. Insurance fraud cases follow a similar shape, with claims files and communications at the core.

Border arrests carry their own procedures. San Diego sits on the US border with Mexico, and cases that begin there can pull in federal agencies and immigration questions alongside the criminal charge. The firm lists this among its areas of work.

Civil rights litigation

The civil rights practice covers police misconduct and injuries that happen in jail. These cases usually run under federal civil rights law, often the statute known as Section 1983. They ask a plaintiff to show that a government official crossed a constitutional line.

Claims of this kind name both the officers involved and the agency that employs them. Jail injury cases look at what staff knew about a detainee's condition and how they responded. Suits against police and county agencies face defenses such as qualified immunity, which a plaintiff has to get past. This is demanding litigation, and the firm keeps it at the center of its work.

Damages in a civil rights case can include compensation for injury and, in some cases, an award meant to deter future conduct. Because the defendant is often a public body, the outcome can reach past the individual client to the practices of a department. The firm's placement of police misconduct and jail injury side by side points to a focus on how people are treated in custody.

Personal injury and employment matters

The personal injury side covers product liability and premises liability, and the firm also brings wrongful death claims. Product liability cases examine whether a product was defective in its design, its manufacture, or its warnings. Premises liability turns on the condition of a property and what its owner knew or should have known. Both types of claim often depend on expert analysis of how the injury happened.

Wrongful death claims are brought by surviving family members after a death caused by another party. These cases often run alongside a criminal case or a safety investigation, and they carry their own rules on who may sue and what damages apply.

On the employment side, the firm represents workers in matters of workplace harassment and discrimination. California gives employees protections that run beyond federal law, and these claims often start with an administrative complaint before they reach court. As a reviewer, I read the pairing of civil rights and employment work as a steady concern with how people are treated by those who hold power over them.

How the team is built

Timothy A. Scott and Michele Akemi McKenzie founded the firm, and both work as trial attorneys. The firm's name comes from their two surnames. Four more trial attorneys fill out the roster: Marcus S. Bourassa, Nicolas O. Jimenez, Lauren Mellano, and Michelle Angeles.

Every lawyer the firm lists carries the same title, trial attorney. That uniformity tells a client the firm organizes itself around cases that can go before a judge and jury. A practice that expects to try cases builds each file for a courtroom from the start.

Behind the attorneys, the firm lists paralegals, a law clerk, and a legal intern. That support handles the document work and research that litigation generates. The firm publishes names and titles for its lawyers on its team page, and a prospective client can ask each attorney about their trial experience and the cases they have handled.

Where the firm practices

The firm keeps a single office in San Diego and represents clients across southern California. It appears in both state and federal courts, which matters given how much of its criminal and civil rights work belongs in the federal system. Federal practice asks lawyers to know a separate set of rules and a separate bench.

The Southern District of California covers San Diego and the surrounding counties, and its docket carries a heavy share of border-related cases. A firm that lists federal defense and border arrests works in that setting as a matter of course. State court hears the bulk of personal injury and employment claims.

Online, the firm keeps profiles on Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, and YouTube. A video channel can give a prospective client a look at how the attorneys speak and present, which suits a practice built on trial work. All six of the firm's named lawyers carry the trial attorney title, and the firm has run under the McKenzie and Scott names since 2000.