About Joe Mullich
Joe Mullich’s writing has appeared in more than 500 publications, ranging from the Wall Street Journal, Harvard Business Review, and Wired Magazine to Consumer Reports, Cosmopolitan, and The Onion. He has received more than four dozen writing awards from the National Society of Newspaper Columnists, National Headliners, International Society of Weekly Newspaper Editors, LA Press Club, and other press organizations. He has written more than 50 stories for Super Lawyers, including regular cover features in Southern California. The common thread in his work is story telling—relating even the most complex topics in terms of the effect on people.
Articles written by Joe Mullich
McNicholas & McNicholas & McNicholas
A father, two sons, and letting Rodman be RodmanAt family dinners with John, Patrick and Matthew McNicholas, the conversation is less likely to be about the latest bingeworthy show than, say, the assumed risk someone takes when water skiing.This is a family that lives and breathes law. “Fun fact: We are the only family that has members in the American Board of Trial Lawyers, the American College of Trial Lawyers and the International Academy of Trial Lawyers,” says Matthew. “The International Academy only has 500 members and is by …
Breaking the Algorithm
Neel Chatterjee’s offbeat recipe for Silicon Valley successOfficially, Neel Chatterjee is a partner in Goodwin Procter’s intellectual property litigation practice. But that title is almost an afterthought on his business cards, where, in bold type, he describes himself as “Partner and Very Handsome Man.” Chatterjee smiles mischievously when asked about the card. “It adds a layer of humanity to the legal services,” he says. “And it’s one of the most useful recruiting and business development tools I’ve ever had. But that’s not the …
Serving the Underserved
Julia Yoo represents the female prisoners and others society has written offIn 1998, a half century after the U.N. General Assembly proclaimed the milestone Universal Declaration of Human Rights, the international organization Human Rights Watch wrote that basic rights for women were “still being challenged at every turn.” That was also the year a recent law school grad named Julia Yoo began helping women whose rights few cared about: prisoners at the Denver Women’s Correctional Facility. On Yoo’s first day at the prison, a large group of inmates sat all day in …
The Difference Maker
The passion and decorum of J. Bernard Alexander IIIHarold Carter Jr. had waited five long years for his day in court. In 2016, he’d been fired from FedEx, where he was employed for a quarter century, working his way up from cargo handler to manager. But when he suffered a spinal cord injury in 2014, FedEx would not accommodate his doctor’s work restrictions. Instead, his workload increased. Eight months after he filed an internal complaint alleging discrimination, harassment and retaliation, he was fired. Even today, 18 months since the …
Opposing Forces
For Joan Fife and Jahan Sagafi, being on opposing sides doesn’t mean yelling across the tableDefense attorney Joan B. Tucker Fife was in the spectator area of a courtroom, waiting for another hearing to conclude. The two attorneys were squabbling back and forth on trivial matters, until the exasperated judge silenced them, pointing to the surprised Fife and telling them they should conduct themselves more like her. “I want to be the most reasonable person in the courtroom,” Fife says. “If a judge needs a fair and accurate answer to a question, I want him to look at me.” …
Hooray for Bollywood
Nitasha Khanna lists her favorite films from IndiaFamily law attorney Nitasha Khanna, an inaugural member of UCLA’s Nashaa Hindi Film Dance team in the early 2000s, is a big fan of Bollywood movies. “I love the colors and the joyful mood,” she says in the 2021 issue of Southern California Rising Stars Magazine. “It’s very happy. A lot of the Bollywood mainstream cinema is romantic, and I am a romantic at heart.” Here are some of her favorites. Dilwale Dulhania Le Jayenge (The Big-Hearted Will Take the Bride) (1995): Two …
Going Bollywood
Family law attorney Nitasha Khanna has a background in Hindi danceAs a psychology student at UCLA in the early 2000s, Nitasha Khanna spent hours and hours dancing in the college’s underground parking lots. Khanna, now a family law attorney at Harris Ginsberg, was one of a dozen members of the UCLA Nashaa Hindi Film Dance team, and there usually wasn’t a room big enough to fit everyone. “So we often practiced in the parking lots, several times a week, for three to four hours at a time,” she says. Founded in 2002, and still going strong 20 years later, …
In for the Long Haul
When Amrit Kulkarni’s not catching waves, he’s helping build big thingsWhenever Amrit Kulkarni flies through Los Angeles International Airport, he takes a moment to reflect on what he calls his “small but meaningful part” in the airport’s growth—successfully defending LAX’s $13 billion expansion plan against four consolidated lawsuits a decade ago. Kulkarni, chair of Meyers Nave’s land use practice group, has many chances for such quiet moments. Quite a few California structures bear his fingerprints. The NBA’s Kings play in a glistening stadium in …
The Science Teacher
How Heidi Keefe used a tin recipe box and a pink stuffed animal to explain tech to juriesIn 2014, a fast-growing technology company called ServiceNow faced a lawsuit from Hewlitt-Packard, which claimed it had violated eight of HP's patents. HP wanted unspecified damages, plus royalties going forward. One patent was for technology that stored information alphabetically in a computer system. It involved complicated issues that the smartest layperson might struggle to understand. But when Heidi Keefe, a partner at Cooley LLP, went to court, she didn’t talk about bits or bytes or …
Palace Intrigue
Bronze Star recipient Phillip Hosp’s path to the law went through IraqPhillip Hosp is the first to admit he wasn’t the best cadet in the ROTC at Boston University. “I was good at enjoying the social aspects of college,” he says, “but not at pretending to be a soldier.” 9/11 changed all that. “It recalibrated the experience you were going into,” he says. “Instead of being about my own personal growth and adventure, it became about serving your country in a time of war.” Hosp trained to become an armored tank officer at Fort Knox. Tanks, he says, …
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