About

Professional identity · Skill areas · How to reach me


I am a Juris Doctor candidate at Ave Maria School of Law focused on regulatory research, legal analysis, and clear written communication. I enjoy working through complicated information: finding the relevant sources, understanding how they fit together, and organizing the results so someone else can assess and use them.

Technology is part of how I approach that work. I use research tools, public data, and AI-assisted workflows to explore questions and improve how information is gathered and reviewed. I care about being able to explain the result, trace it to its sources, and make the work understandable to the people who need it.

Skill Areas

Legal
Regulatory research · statutory interpretation · administrative-law research · legal writing · contract analysis
Data
Government and public-data APIs · structured-data research · dataset filtering · data validation · historical data reconstruction
AI tools and methods
Selecting appropriate tools · Developing research workflows · Checking AI-generated results · Understanding access and confidentiality limits
Systems
Contract-management evaluation · court information systems · desktop workflow automation · cross-functional IT collaboration · process optimization
Delivery
Written legal work product · interactive HTML · research presentations to professional audiences · public-facing research · executive/supervisor communication

Credentials

The practice of law is being handed a genuinely new horizon, and in a proactive effort to read the water — and not get lost at sea — I have been charting it on purpose.

Most of that has meant AI and the law: Clio's Legal AI track end to end — Fundamentals, Emerging, and Advanced (December 2025 through August 2026); Harvey's Legal Engineer certification at the foundational level (2026); and, as a law student before licensure, two Rossdale continuing-legal-education webinars on generative AI in practice — Mastering Artificial Intelligence & ChatGPT Law in 2026 and Cutting-Edge AI, ChatGPT and Generative AI Law in 2026.

Beneath the new instruments sit the enduring ones: LexisNexis Applied Legal Research certificates across secondary sources, statutory law, case law, and litigation — and one cheerful outlier, a Negotiation Professional certificate, because however far the horizon moves, the work still comes down to people in a room.

Contact

LinkedIn · /in/joshuamcelwee

Full career detail and connection live on LinkedIn. This site is a professional portfolio, not a legal-services intake — please do not send confidential or case-specific information.

Raised in East Texas.

Married for almost ten years. This year we welcomed our first child and started raising a family of our own.

I believe the people we meet make us. The work on this site has people behind it — teachers, judges, attorneys, paralegals, family. A person is easier to place when you have a reference point; consider this page mine.

Childhood photo holding my first fish, East Texas
The first fish.
Four photos of my grandfather
My grandfather — he enjoyed all of it.
My cousin and wife fishing at a pond
My cousin and wife, lines in.
A well-worn copy of Chernow's Washington: A Life
My type of reading.
Asleep on Dad
The newest title.
Reading a board book by the pool
Her type of reading.
Home