Scott W. Reed
BA Psychology; MSW
Assistant Utah Attorney General; Director of Utah Opioid Task Force
Utah Office of the Attorney General
Scott W. Reed is an assistant Utah Attorney General, assigned as special assistant to the AG and senior drug and alcohol policy advisor. In his twenty-five years in the Utah Attorney General’s office, Reed has served as Division Chief in three separate divisions - Criminal Justice, Commerce, and Child Protection - as well as the Director of the State Assistance to Narcotics Enforcement (SANE) grant project. First admitted to practice in 1983, he has been both a prosecutor and criminal defense attorney throughout his 35 years of practice. Mr. Reed has passed the bar exam in the states of Utah, Washington and Oregon and has tried criminal jury trials in each of those jurisdictions.
Over the course of his legal career, Mr. Reed has been active in legal training of peace officers and prosecutors, and has provided over 1400 hours of instruction in areas including search and seizure, criminal procedure, trial advocacy, asset forfeiture, and financial crimes. He has been a regular instructor at the Utah Peace Officer Standards and Training (POST) Academy since 1986, and has appeared as a prosecutor trainer in Washington, Oregon, Idaho, Montana, Utah, Nevada, Colorado, Arizona, Iowa, Mississippi, Minnesota, Louisiana, Indiana, Florida, and Virginia, and has been a featured presenter for both the National District Attorneys Association and the National Association of Attorneys General. He is the co-author of the 420-page Utah Drug Investigator and Prosecutor’s Handbook, and has published several articles in law enforcement journals on drug interdiction, asset forfeiture and constitutional law.
Reed is currently the Director of the Utah Opioid Task Force, serves as Vice Chair to the Utah Substance Use and Mental Health Advisory Council, and sits as a member of the Board of the Utah Narcotic Officers Association and the Utah Law Enforcement Memorial. In September 2018, he was installed as a member of the Board of Directors of the National Alliance for Model State Drug Laws in Harrisburg, PA.