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
Driven
Craig McClellan argues complicated cases for two-minute mindsIt was literally a he said/she said case. In 1999, plaintiff attorney Craig McClellan’s client said she crashed into a concrete barrier alongside the freeway when the defendant’s truck swerved into her lane. The defendant denied he had gone over the line. Witness accounts differed. McClellan knew he had to make a complicated scenario clear for the jury. That’s where the model and photos came in. McClellan had one witness point out the position of the truck and his client’s car on a …
The Lawyer Judges Wish They Could Clone
Rick Watters keeps his focus on the client—and his ego in checkA $5 million settlement offer was on the table. Some attorneys would have scooped it up, but Rick Watters, president of Miles, Sears & Eanni in Fresno, let it sit. His client had suffered severe back and pelvis injuries after his van was rear-ended by a Southern California Edison truck during a snowstorm, and Watters was irritated that Edison had “offered nothing” until the jury was out in the 2011 trial. “I was bothered a gigantic corporation like this can push people around,” he …
Tea With Ginsburg, Hiking With O’Connor
Two attorneys reminisce about their year clerking or the U.S. Supreme CourtOn a cold, early morning in late 2004, a throng of people surrounded the U.S. Supreme Court building, some with tape covering their mouths, imploring the court to take on the controversial Terri Schiavo end-of-life case. Katherine H. Ku, a clerk for Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, was struck by the stark contrast between the political noise outside and the calm collegiality inside. “You might think there would be a sharp tone between the colleagues on the Court with different political …
The Two Sides of Koji Fukumura
The securities lawyer is a mix of laid-back Hawaiian and Philly street fighter“I was getting my butt kicked.” That’s Koji Fukumura talking about his first deposition. It was 1994, he was fresh out of Temple Law School, and he was facing a trio of lawyers from prestigious firms in New York, Washington and Philadelphia in a big RICO case. One of those lawyers, who had a background with the Securities and Exchange Commission, kept interrupting him with “speaking objections,” in which he basically provided the answer he wanted his client to give. “This went on …
Annette Hurst: Defending Your Right to Skip Ads
How she got a judge to reject broadcasters’ demands for an injunction against DISH NetworkThe cross-examination was about as slam-dunk as these things get. Annette Hurst, a partner at Orrick, Herrington & Sutcliffe, had just learned the witness she was about to confront had erased a massive amount of documents he’d been ordered to turn over to the court. But in the complex world of intellectual property and copyright litigation, even a slam-dunk needs to be approached gingerly. Hurst’s team was representing tech giant Brocade Communications Systems Inc. in a patent, …
A Quintessential American Story
Ken Lee’s journey from Seoul, to Koreatown, to 1600 Pennsylvania AvenueWhen Ken Lee boarded Air Force One for the first time in late 2008, he was struck by the enormity of the plane, and, for him, the enormity of the moment. Lee was an associate counsel for the White House in the waning days of the George W. Bush administration, and staffers who had never been on Air Force One were invited to take a flight with the president. After the plane was airborne, Lee, wanting to share the once-in-a-lifetime experience, asked for a call to be placed to his father. 6 A …
Fitzgerald's Trumpet
When Ken Fitzgerald isn’t repping the San Diego Chicken or cross-examining bad actors, he moonlights with the La Jolla SymphonyAs Ken Fitzgerald approached the jury, he thought momentarily of Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony. A partner and business litigation attorney at Chapin Fitzgerald in San Diego, Fitzgerald had an important point to make in his summation, but he didn’t plan on making it grandly. Instead, he walked to the corner of the jury box and dropped his voice. The jury leaned forward. Fitzgerald, who received a music scholarship to Rice University and plays first trumpet for the La Jolla Symphony Orchestra, …
Security for Survivors
Latham & Watkins helps Holocaust victims seek financial reparations from the German governmentAfter enduring one of the most horrific events known to humankind, many Holocaust survivors face a different challenge near the end of their lives. An estimated 25 to 30 percent of survivors in the U.S. live below the poverty line and about half of those in Los Angeles are classified as poor or low-income, according to Bet Tzedek, a Los Angeles-based legal services organization. “Survivors might be struggling to afford food as well as medicine for a sick wife,” says Josh Mausner, an …
Firm Values
For Morrison & Foerster, pro bono work is more than just a priorityWhen Diana Kruze attended law school, she never imagined her attorney duties would someday include purchasing wedding rings for a pro bono client who had nearly been beaten to death by a jeering mob because of who she loved. But these were no usual clients. Kruze and three colleagues were representing a lesbian couple from Cameroon—where gay people are routinely persecuted and imprisoned—in an asylum case. One half of the couple, Gertrude, was stranded in the U.S. while promoting a …
Who Would Rosie Hire?
Jean K. Hyams is all about making sure her clients get a fair shake in the workplaceEven as Jean K. Hyams began her closing argument, she was looking forward to showing the picture. This was a case in which an African-American worker had been harassed and fired, and it included a nasty workplace incident involving a white co-worker who prevented him from getting a drink of water. Hyams’ presentation unspooled—lots of pictures, few words—until she reached the indelible image of a water fountain, bringing to mind the “separate but equal” doctrine that, in the Jim …
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