About James D. Scott

Bachelor of Arts, English Literature Macalester College 1977
Juris Doctor, University of San Diego 1981

Editor in Chief, The University of San Diego Law Periodical, 1981
Editor in Chief, SDIRC Handbook, 1995
Editor in Chief, SDIRC Handbook, 1996

Professional Mediation Training 1994, The Northern California Mediation Center

With Joan B. Kelly, Ph.D. and Nancy J. Foster, J.D.

Trial Lawyers College Palomar Warriors 1998, 1999, 2000

With Gerry Spence J.D., John Nolte, PhD., Don Clarkson ACSW, and Katyln Larimer, MSW

Associate, Holt and Baugh 1981 – 1983:

Family Law Practice in High Volume

Partner, Holt, Baugh and Scott 1983 – 1988:

Family Law Practice and Injuries to Spouses and Children

Partner, Scott and Wentz, 1988 – 1990:

A law firm specializing in family law, real estate and personal injury focusing on complex family law and tort injuries to spouses and children.

Examples: Superior Court verdicts for abused children:
$750,000.00 SDSC No. 578139
$2,311,000.00 SDSC No. EC003511

Owner, The Law Office of James D. Scott, 1990 – Present:

Board Certified Family Law Specialist focusing on complex cases in contested matters of divorce, alimony, child custody, child support, paternity, representation of families of professional baseball and football players, business evaluation and division. The defense of professional practices and separately held businesses in divorce.

Professionally trained, qualified and experienced marital mediation where the husband and wife are willing to work together to share information about their finances and child rearing to bring closure to their marital problems out of court and out of the eye of the public.

We continue to accept a very limited number of cases representing injured children. We continue to represent parents wrongfully accused of abuse.

Most marital problems arise in middle class families as a result of issues with sex, money, or chemical dependency, or a combination of these issues. We understand the root causes and the desires of most people to keep these problems private.

Experience:
Divorces Involving Professional Practices and Family Businesses:

1. Attorneys Law Practices
2. Architects
3. Doctors and Medical Offices
4. Restaurants
5. Ship Building
6. Import/Export
7. Manufacturing and many more.

Designated "Expert" United States Department of Labor.

Qualified "Expert" California Superior Court

In 1981 I was invited to begin my career with the law firm of Holt and Baugh. As a young associate I frequently worked ten hours per day for seven days per week. My senior partners kept feeding so many divorce cases to me that there was no time to even discuss settlement from the beginning to the trial. Almost every Friday I found myself handling from one to three trials in divorce courts.

Within a few years I became impressed with the predictability of divorces. Within the first interview with a potential client, I could evaluate the case and accurately predict what would result at the end of the trial. After all, how hard is it to divide by two?

Child support has always been predictable, even before the Agnos Act and before the infamous Mandatory Guideline. Today the calculations are a matter of plugging the numbers into one of several computer programs.

I would like to state that in the first ten years of my practice I handled 1,000 divorces. That probably is not an exaggeration, although I have never actually made a count. The way that I handled cases changed when my senior partners retired. I began to settle the contested cases as soon as the emotions of the spouses settled down and everyone could act reasonably. It still amazed me that people would regularly spend $3,500 to $5,000 to $10,000 or more on each side to argue, confront and insult each other before coming to terms.