Joseph B. McDonald

Joseph B. McDonald, a native of Guam, is the youngest son of James and Josefina McDonald.  He received a BA from the University of California at Davis in 1989 and his law degree from the Northwestern School of Law at Lewis and Clark College in Portland, Oregon in 1998.  He was admitted to practice law in Guam in 1999, the CNMI in 2000 and Florida in 2008.  Prior to joining the firm, Mr. McDonald spent five years in public service, as Chief Prosecutor in the Office of the Attorney General of Guam, staff attorney at the Port Authority of Guam, and Assistant Attorney General in the Consumer Division of the AG’s office.  Before returning to returning to Guam in late 2014, Mr. McDonald was a supervising attorney at the Law Offices of Daniel C. Consuegra in Tampa, Florida and senior counsel for Citigroup.

Mr. McDonald has enjoyed a wide spectrum of roles and responsibilities as an attorney with over 22 years’ experience in government and private practice.  Mr. McDonald was research attorney to Chief Justice Benjamin J.F. Cruz and assisted with rendering drafts for opinions in landmark tax and banking cases.  At Citigroup, he was Guam’s local business counsel before being transferred to Tampa, Florida.  There, in addition to overseeing banking and securities litigation in the Latin America region, he was Chief Compliance Officer and Internal Investigations Counsel.  He then served as business counsel for several Citi Global Wealth Management businesses in North and Latin America, Europe, and Asia, providing support to commercial banking, investment banking, broker-dealer, investment advisor and fiduciary business units.  At the Consuegra firm, Mr. McDonald gained extensive experience in real property and debtor-creditor litigation.  There, he represented numerous financial institutions in thousands of cases filed throughout the entire state as the foreclosure crisis in Florida hit its peak.  In 2014, upon returning to Guam, Mr. McDonald started to develop his criminal litigation expertise where, as a prosecutor, he focused on white collar crimes including tax, fraud, embezzlement, and corruption, as well as murder and armed robbery.  In 2019, Mr. McDonald started the collections unit in the AG’s Consumer Division and developed the office’s policies and procedures to support collections for the Dept. of Administration, Guam Memorial Hospital Authority and the Department of Revenue & Taxation.  Mr. McDonald has also represented the government in several criminal and civil appeals, has earned the required credentials in Gov Guam procurement law, and has represented the government at the Civil Service Commission.

Mr. McDonald is the firm’s chief litigator and is concentrating his practice on civil, criminal and tax litigation.  He is also handling transactions/structuring for clients’ business, banking, securities, business organizations (corporations, partnerships, LLCs) and property needs.