Joseph R. Wilbert, Esq.

Joseph Wilbert is a distinguished attorney and innovative technologist at the forefront of legal practice in the digital age. As a founding partner of Grounds LLP, Joe leverages his unique blend of legal acumen and technological expertise to pioneer AI-driven solutions in complex litigation, with a particular focus on class actions and cutting-edge legal challenges.Joe's career is marked by a commitment to justice and innovation. He clerked for the Honorable Andrew J. Guilford in California federal court, and then worked at Irell & Manella LLP in Newport Beach, CA, a nationally-recognized intellectual property and litigation firm. In 2013, Joe co-founded the firm that eventually became Lopez, Bark & Schulz, LLP, a leading insurance recovery boutique where Joe still maintains an affiliation. And in 2017-18, Joe self-learned software development from the ground up, with a focus on building artificial intelligence applications for the legal profession.In 2024, with his co-founder Bahrad, Joe opened Grounds LLP and Grounds, Inc. to provide the next generation legal services and to create the technology that enables those services. Relying on his experience as an AI developer and with class action and intellectual property matters, Joe is helping people obtain extraordinary representation at unprecedented levels of efficiency.

As a counselor, Joe has secured numerous victories in state and federal courts, recovered millions of dollars for plaintiffs, and skillfully defended clients against high-stakes claims. His litigation experience spans class actions, intellectual property disputes, insurance recovery, and complex commercial and contractual matters.Joe's experience includes:• Successful litigation experience in multiple class and representative action matters, including defeating motion for class certification in an employment case against a major food retailer; representing taxi drivers in collective action concerning unfair employment practices; successfully resolving putative class claims against grocery store chain for allegedly mislabeling food products as "halal"; obtaining court ruling denying motion to compel arbitration in class action for home health care workers; obtaining dismissal of false advertising class action for nutritional supplements; and multiple other defense-side representations.• Successfully resolved multiple intellectual property litigation matters, including Lanham Act claims for alleged trademark infringement, trade dress infringement, counterfeiting, and "gray market" product sales, both on the merits and regarding complex insurance coverage issues.• Drafted foundational terms and policies for multiple companies, including privacy policies, service agreements, licensing agreements, terms and conditions, employee and contractor agreements, and more;• Led complex negotiations and regulatory compliance efforts regarding multiple SaaS AI products, and software products related to web accessibility;• Represented many companies and individuals seeking to enforce their rights under insurance policies, with an exceptional record in cases where the insurance company initially denies coverage;• Served as lead Cumis defense counsel in multiple cases involving complex liability and insurance coverage issues;• Won summary judgment for a food industry client defending against claims seeking millions of dollars for alleged interference, defamation, and breach of contract; upheld on appeal. Mortillaro Lobster, Inc. v. Aguila, 2020 WL 1671443 (Cal. Ct. App. 2020);• Won summary judgment that an insurer had breached its insurance contract by refusing to defend the client in another federal court case alleging claims of intellectual property infringement. West Trend, Inc. v. AMCO Ins. Co., 2015 WL 263934 (C.D. Cal. 2015);• Represented industrial technology company seeking to recover environmental remediation costs under an insurance policy that covered the early 1970s. After winning federal motions, Joe personally spent weeks at the company's manufacturing site reviewing hundreds of thousands of dust-covered, oily documents from the 1970s. Through this, he found critical records linking environmental chemicals with insurance-covered practices in the 1970s, which resulted in an excellent settlement. Griswold Controls, LLC v. Cont'l Ins. Co., 2015 WL 12670485 (C.D. Cal. 2015);• Successfully prosecuted of trade secret claims, and defense against counterclaims for defamation and interference, including winning an appellate ruling concerning attorney ethics issues, Blueberry Hill Restaurants, Inc. v. Superior Court, No. B250597 (Cal. App. 2014).• Part of trademark infringement defense trial team for a sports apparel startup that obtained verdict for a small fraction of the damages sought with favorable non-monetary terms, in a case brought by a publicly-traded plaintiff.

Joe's passion for technology led him to immerse himself in software development and artificial intelligence. He has worked on and created numerous AI-powered legal tools, and has been involved in generative AI for legal work long before the advent of ChatGPT. Separately, Joe has single-handedly developed touchless computer interfaces for multiple platforms, personally executing all tasks for data gathering, model training, application development, and deployment. (Well, you can use two hands as well):At Grounds LLP, Joe is at the forefront of integrating AI into legal practice. Together with their software company Grounds Inc., Joe and Bahrad have developed--and are continuing to improve--AI-powered tools for document analysis and generation, case strategy, predictive modeling, automated compliance, automated negotiation, and dispute resolution simulation. Joe follows state-of-the-art research in artificial intelligence, natural language processing and understanding, and automated reasoning. Joe's rare combination of legal and technical prowess enables Joe to offer clients cutting-edge strategies for navigating the complexities of modern litigation and regulatory landscapes.

• Joe previously served as the President of the Orange County Bar Association's Insurance Law Section, and as the Secretary for its Professionalism and Ethics Committee. During law school, Joe was lead articles editor for the Georgetown Journal of Legal Ethics. Joe actively participates in scholarship on artificial intelligence and ethics, including:
• A Look at Law & AI in 2018, lawandai.com, https://www.lawandai.com/2018/12/28/a-look-at-law-ai-in-2018/
• Court Treatment Of Artificial Intelligence: Predictive Coding, https://www.lawandai.com/2018/09/05/court-treatment-of-artificial-intelligence-predictive-coding/
• Ethically Speaking: Judicial Recusal Due to the Litigation Views of a Judge's Future Employer, Orange County Lawyer Magazine, vol. 58 (2016)
• Ethically Speaking: Lawyers' Ethics in Informal Investigations, Orange County Lawyer Magazine, vol. 54 (2014)
• Muzzling Rambo Attorneys: Preventing Abusive Witness Coaching by Banning Attorney-Initiated Consultations with Deponents, 21 GEO. J. LEGAL ETHICS 1129, 1129 (2008)

• State of California
• State of New York
• United States Court of Appeals, Ninth Circuit
• United States District Court, Central District of California
• United States District Court, Northern District of California
• United States District Court, Eastern District of California