Over the course of his career, Joseph McMullen has dealt with some of the most powerful agencies in the country: the FBI, Customs and Border Protection, and Immigration and Customs Enforcement. But in early 2024 the San Diego–based civil rights attorney faced a problem of scale. He had three federal trials in three months—two involving deaths in jail, one involving American children detained at the border—and terabytes of documents. He turned to artificial intelligence to help him get through it all.
McMullen’s path to the courtroom has been unconventional. A former analyst at the consulting firm Bain & Company, he received a law degree at the University of Virginia and trained at the Trial Lawyers College (now called the Gerry Spence Method) in Wyoming in a program that specialized in the emotional craft of storytelling. The emphasis he places on both analytical rigor and narrative instinct has led him, unexpectedly, to artificial intelligence.
