Joseph McNally

As Director of Emerging Torts and Litigation at McNicholas & McNicholas, LLP, Joseph McNally leads the firm’s litigation efforts in emerging areas of technology-related harm, including social media platform liability, data breaches, online exploitation, sex trafficking and other catastrophic injuries. Drawing on nearly two decades of federal prosecution experience, Joe helps position the firm at the forefront of litigation addressing the intersection of technology, privacy and public accountability.

Before joining McNicholas & McNicholas, Joe spent 17 years as an Assistant U.S. Attorney in the Central District of California, where he also served as Acting U.S. Attorney and First Assistant U.S. Attorney, overseeing more than 250 prosecutors in one of the nation’s most prominent federal districts. His leadership spanned high-profile criminal and civil matters, including fraud, organized crime, and public corruption.

As a career federal prosecutor, his notable casework includes convictions in California’s largest healthcare fraud and kickback scheme involving 21 doctors and healthcare executives, the racketeering trial conviction of a senior leader of the Mexican Mafia, and prosecutions of international money-laundering organizations that moved over $60 million through Los Angeles jewelry businesses. He also led prosecutions of a federal law enforcement officer and his wife for money laundering and narcotics trafficking, and an Orange County lawyer and business partners who defrauded homeowners in a multimillion-dollar loan modification scheme.

In recognition of his excellence, Joe received the U.S. Department of Justice Director’s Award for Superior Performance, one of the department’s highest honors, for his work dismantling a Eurasian organized crime group responsible for a multimillion-dollar bank fraud and identity theft operation.

Beyond the courtroom, Joe served as Senior Counsel to the Assistant Attorney General for Legal Policy, advising the Attorney General’s Office and Deputy Attorney General’s Office on criminal law and judicial nominations. He has trained prosecutors nationwide as a faculty member at the DOJ’s National Advocacy Center and taught trial advocacy at the University of California, Irvine School of Law. Before joining the U.S. Attorney’s Office, he clerked for the Honorable D. Lowell Jensen, U.S. District Judge for the Northern District of California.

Joe earned his Juris Doctor from UC Berkeley School of Law and his Bachelor of Science from Santa Clara University.