Julia assists individuals, businesses, and municipalities with a wide range of legal issues involving real estate, land use, and municipal law — from drafting and negotiating purchase and sale agreements, easements, leases, and declarations to assisting both municipal and private sector clients with development issues, right-of-way regulation, telecommunications siting, zoning changes and variances, tax increment financing, and all manner of disputes regarding real estate.
Julia is passionate about making the law understandable and accessible to her clients and helping them find the most effective way to accomplish their goals. She works with her clients to find creative solutions to problems and strives to explain legal documents in plain language.
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Professional Memberships
- American Bar Association
- American Planning Association
- State Bar of Wisconsin
- State Bar of Illinois
- Commercial Brokers Group
- Dane County Bar Association
- Sauk County Bar Association
Admitted to Practice
- Wisconsin State Courts
- Illinois State Courts
- United States District Court for the Western District of Wisconsin
Honors & Recognition
- Recognized in Best Lawyers: Ones to Watch® in America
- Land Use and Zoning Law, 2021-Present
- Municipal Law, 2021-Present
- Selected to The Wisconsin Super Lawyers: Rising Stars® list, 2021-Present
- Up and Coming Lawyer, Wisconsin Law Journal, 2018
See our disclaimer regarding third-party awards.
Community Involvement & Board Memberships
- Fitchburg Zoning Board of Appeals, Member
- Rotary Club of Madison – After Hours, Member
- Anderson Park Friends, Member
- Friends of Oregon Public Library, Member
- Habitat for Humanity Young Professionals, Member, 2018-2021
- Greater Madison Area Society for Human Resource Management, Programming Committee Member, 2015-2016
Presentations, Publications, & Contributions
Julia teaches LAW 830: Land Use Controls and URBRPL 833: Planning and the Legal System to law students and urban planning graduate students at UW–Madison. She also regularly presents to attorneys, local government officials, and utility managers on topics such a cell tower leasing and right-of-way regulation. Julia has written a variety of articles on topics related to real estate and local government practice and she is the author of a chapter in the Wisconsin Condominium Law Handbook.
Education
- J.D., summa cum laude, University of Michigan Law School
- University of Michigan Law Review
- Darrow Scholarship (full tuition and stipend)
- Order of the Coif
- Judicial Intern, Late Honorable Justice N. Patrick Crooks, Wisconsin Supreme Court
- Judicial Intern, Honorable Richard G. Neiss, Dane County Circuit Court
- Awards for best performance in Administrative Law, Civil Procedure, Business Organizations, American Legal History, Legal Practice, Evidence, Higher Education Law, and Business Tax
- Research Assistant for Professor Julian Davis Mortenson
- B.A., International Relations, magna cum laude, Brown University
- Phi Beta Kappa
- Managing Editor, Brown Journal of World Affairs
- S.C. Rosenberger Prize for Excellence in International Relations
Practice Areas
- Real Estate & Land Use Law
- Core Business Services
- Municipal Law
- Energy
- Municipal Utilities
Outside the Office
In her free time, Julia loves to travel and has spent extended time abroad in Amman, Jordan and Copenhagen, Denmark. She enjoys biking, British panel quiz shows, and cooking Middle Eastern food. She also likes to read and is currently working her way through Karl Ove Knausgaard's "My Struggle," the most recent issue of Discover magazine, and an ethnography about gifts and bribes in modern China.
Julia’s Latest Writing & Presentations
Wisconsin Supreme Court Upholds Condemnation of Land for Sidewalks
Municipal Law Newsletter | 08.01.24
On June 19, 2024, the Wisconsin Supreme Court issued a decision in Sojenhomer LLC v. Village of Egg Harbor, 2024 WI 25, a case clarifying the scope of municipal condemnation authority.
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