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
Common Touch
Terry McMahon’s working-class roots helped make him an uncommonly good IP attorneyNot more than 30 seconds into an interview, Terry McMahon, a partner at McDermott Will & Emery in Silicon Valley, declares, “Let’s dispense with the pretensions,” and whips off his suit coat. He leans back in his chair, plopping his heels on his desk and explaining, “I usually wear sandals and a Hawaiian shirt when I’m not going to court.” McMahon, 61, is renowned for mesmerizing jurors—to the extent he once brought a placenta into a courtroom (more on that later). Colleagues …
Bleeding Dodger Blue
Recent Texas transplant Victoria Cook has already made a splash in the McCourt divorce caseFor the closing arguments of McCourt v. McCourt, the epic divorce case that attempted to determine the ownership of the Los Angeles Dodgers, the legal team representing Frank McCourt in proceedings against his ex-wife, Jamie, employed an unusual strategy. Two name-partner heavyweights, Steve Susman (of Susman Godfrey) and Sorrell Trope (of Trope and Trope), addressed key technical issues about family and contract law that, while obviously important to the case, didn’t make it into many …
Mr. Fix-It
When lawyers have a mess on their hands, they call Charles SevillaPetitions for habeas corpus before the California Supreme Court tend to have fairly long and legalistic titles, such as “Due to the Pattern of Witness Intimidation, Petitioner was Denied His Right to a Fair Trial Under the 14th Amendment of the U.S. Constitution.” The document filed by attorney Charles M. Sevilla in 1987, petitioning for the release of Herman Martin, an insurance executive who was convicted of murder, was an exception. It said simply: “Something Is Wrong.” “That’s a …
From O.J. to Skilling
Dan Petrocelli on how to handle the high-profile casesAs he cross-examined the plaintiff in a complex real estate case on behalf of Lennar Corp., a Fortune 500 home-builder, and its various subsidiaries, Dan Petrocelli pushed and prodded the plaintiff about his prior sworn declaration. Finally, he asked, “Can you go through the declaration and mark off every statement that is not true?” The courtroom grew silent when the plaintiff asked for a pencil. “I sat in disbelief as he spent 10 minutes on the stand, indicating that all these …
The Professor of Defamation
When the Queen of Soul—yes, Aretha—felt she was libeled, she called Michael NiborskiSPECIAL NEWS BREAK! “Aretha Franklin’s friends fear she is drinking herself into the grave.” “Martha Stewart is a mentally ill, self-mutilator who threatened suicide.” “Courtney Love is on an obsessive and delusional Twitter campaign to destroy a fashion designer.” By the time you’ve seen it on TMZ or gossiped about it with office colleagues, Michael Niborski is likely to have already heard an earful about it from the celebrity in question. One of the top libel and defamation …
The Fencer
Why Claudette Wilson chooses artful over aggressiveWhen the plaintiff took the stand at the federal courthouse in Orange County in August 2008, he seemed supremely confident. He was suing GlaxoSmithKline (GSK) for age discrimination, contending the pharmaceutical giant fired him because he was 49 years old, not, as GSK insisted, because he had violated a company policy regarding grants. As the cross-examination continued, however, his confidence seemed to evaporate. He kept backtracking and explaining the many discrepancies in his various …
The Smoking Gun Detective
The understated, underrated Mark Robinson’s outrageously creative research pays dividendsPeople in the know advised Mark Robinson that the case was a lost cause. He was about to ask the California Supreme Court to revive a major class action lawsuit against the tobacco industry, alleging that Californians had been misled with deceptive advertising. This required the justices to overturn the trial judges’ interpretation of the 2004 mandate from voters that had resisted half a decade of challenges in lower courts. When he appeared before the court, Justice Marvin R. Baxter—“a …
Made in the U.S.A.
Glenn Weinman, designer of legal strategy at American ApparelDuring a tour of American Apparel’s 800,000-square-foot factory in downtown Los Angeles, Glenn Weinman doesn’t hide his enthusiasm. “How often do you get to step into a real factory in Los Angeles?” he says. Walking into the adjoining outlet store, he stops at a rack of clothes from the California Select line, vintage apparel that includes refurbished clothing from other manufacturers. He paws through the sweatshirts, making sure none were made in a foreign country and would violate …
The Million-Dollar Man
Mike Kelly is a very funny man. But facing him in court is no laughing matterMichael A. Kelly has tried, arbitrated or mediated more than 100 cases in which his client's recovery exceeded $1 million, including the largest personal injury verdict in Sonoma County history. So it's not surprising that when asked for his most memorable courtroom moment, Kelly has to lean back in his chair and think for a while. Finally, he recalls a case he tried nearly two decades ago, when the courthouse was still housed in City Hall. The grandiose room seated 200, but usually, "only two …
The Gladiator
Cynthia Chihak's eat-what-you-kill philosophyAs Cynthia Chihak rises to cross-examine the witness, a physician, she's not much taller standing than the witness is sitting. In a deceptively soothing voice, the slender Chihak asks, "Did your mother ever tell you, 'You should always tell the truth?'" The physician shifts in his seat and stiffly replies, "I believe we had that discussion at one point." "So why did you forget it when you came into the courtroom today?" Chihak fires back. Telling that story in her office near Del Mar, Chihak …
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