Upon graduation from law school, Rob worked with a family friend who had a civil law practice that included personal injury and water law. Using his background in broadcast journalism, Rob produced trainings delivered by video for the American Bar Association’s Lawyers Communication Network. Rob’s interest in public policy lead to his advocacy on behalf of professional associations for several years at the Utah Legislature.

Rob took his lived experience to begin his own law practice, where he found his calling representing individuals responding to State interventions in their lives. And — after a brief interlude as the Town Attorney for Big Water, Utah in Kane County, mostly prosecuting criminal cases but also representing the town in civil matters — Rob returned to representing the citizen accused in Utah’s courts.

And like so many who have come to live in southern Utah, when Rob saw the opportunity to reside amongst our spectacular red rocks and sunny skies, he took it. The widespread implementation of remote hearings by Utah’s courts in 2020 empowered Rob to appear in any district, justice, or juvenile court.

After several years of traditional criminal defense practice, Rob pursued an opportunity to practice in Washington County’s juvenile courts. There, he represented both young individuals responding to petitions alleging delinquent conduct, and parents responding to family regulation petitions.

In 2015, the Parental Defense Alliance of Utah (now called the Utah Family Defenders Association) recognized Rob as its New Parental Defender of the Year. A few years later, Rob won a landmark case protecting family integrity before the Utah Court of Appeals, and successfully defended its appeal to the Utah Supreme Court.

When Rob Latham protected the integrity of families from the DCFS and asserted the process due young people in juvenile court as a Washington County contract defender, some within those institutions and their lawyers developed enmity over his challenges to their ability exercise power arbitrarily. One such institutional player, a former deputy county attorney — Angela MacKay (also known as Angela Adams or Angela MacKey … now a juvenile court judge) — not only prosecuted Washington County’s youths in juvenile court (where her spouse, Bart MacKay, has worked) but also traded on her past experience with the Office of Guardian ad Litem to handle … adoption cases (for more information, see childtraffickingexposed.wordpress.com).

Eventually, a scheme was hatched: Washington County Commissioners Gil Almquist, Victor Iverson, and the late Dean Cox would create an indigent defense “committee” — the only such county-level committee in Utah to date — to field complaints about public defenders. Only, that plan backfired because — after considering the complaints made by those who opposed Rob in court, not his clients — the newly-formed committee recommended that Rob’s contract be renewed.

In the course of defending the autonomy and integrity of his clients’ families, on a few occasions Rob subpoenaed Washington County Commission Administrator Nicholle Felshaw, Indigent Defense Committee member Jenny Jones, and a region director and case supervisor for DCFS, Kyle Garrett and Deanna Bigelow, respectively, to court.

Another then-deputy Washington County attorney, Eric Clarke, prepared an objection to the subpoenas for Felshaw and Jones. Clarke’s draft objection claimed “grave[] concern[] with the potential precedent of having staff and appointed indigent defense committee members subpoenaed to testify” in cases … or at least in the case involving a complaint coordinated by one of Clarke’s former child-trafficking colleagues.

However, the DCFS preferred to give Rob’s clients the relief they sought rather than have the actions of its region director and case supervisor scrutinized in open court, and Clarke’s objection wasn’t filed.

The following year, the Washington County Commissioners decided not to renew Rob’s contract to defend the autonomy and integrity of southern Utah families, without a stated reason.

Washington County Attorney Brock Belnap announced his departure from the office a few weeks later.

When one door closes other doors open, and Rob is now living his dream of championing our constitutional rights in Utah’s courts as a roster attorney contracting with the Utah Indigent Defense Commission, while maintaining his ability to advocate on behalf of private clients seeking a champion.