Shawn McMillan

McMillan Law

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My father was a physicist, a quiet man who worked at General Atomic in San Diego, studying how the world might survive a neutron bomb. He introduced me to computers when I was young, and by the time I was in the eleventh grade, I had a contract with a subsidiary of IBM, writing a tutorial for what would become their Xenix operating system. They paid me twenty dollars an hour, which was enough to cover college in 1984. I went to UCSD, studied Applied Mathematics, but soon realized there wasn’t much money it.

In 1985, I joined my brother Scott in his business and started building and selling personal computers from our parents’ kitchen table. In six months, we went from $30,000 to over a million dollars a month in sales. I switched majors, first to philosophy, then economics, searching for something less demanding as our business grew. When I butted heads with the economics department head, I knew I needed a faster way to graduate. I tried Theater, but that was too time-consuming. Eventually, I landed in Chinese Studies, learning Mandarin while running our expanding business, traveling to China, and setting up deals.

By 1994, I finally graduated after ten years. Our business took off, opening warehouses in Mexico and navigating trade restrictions by any means necessary. But when trade laws eased, the risks outweighed the rewards. Feeling restless, I decided to study law, taking night classes while my wife and I juggled a new baby and work. I graduated and passed the bar in 2000, but by then the Dot Com bubble had burst, and our computer business folded.

I opened my own law practice, focusing on business litigation, but soon found my calling defending the civil rights of families caught in the child protection system. It wasn’t the most profitable path, but it has been meaningful. During the COVID lockdowns, I felt my mind going soft again, so I took and passed the bars in Washington, Arizona, and Oregon. I’m shooting for admission in all states in the 9th Circuit.

Along the way, I earned a pilot’s license, a third-degree black belt in Tae Kwon Do, and some various awards for my work. After injuring my knee, I traded martial arts for boxing. I like to fish, hunt, surf with my kids, and travel to the sorts of places most folks might avoid. And so it goes.