Draft:Julia M. Lipez

Julia Martha Lipez (born 1980) is an American lawyer who has served as a justice of the Maine Superior Court since 2022. She is a nominee to serve as a United States circuit judge of the United States Court of Appeals for the First Circuit.

Education
Lipez received a Bachelor of Arts, magna cum laude, from Amherst College in 2002 and Juris Doctor, with distinction, from Stanford Law School in 2006.

Career
From 2006 to 2007, she served as a law clerk for Judge Diana Gribbon Motz of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit. From 2007 to 2011, she was an associate and then a senior associate at Wilmer Cutler Pickering Hale and Dorr in New York City. From 2011 to 2022, Lipez worked as an assistant United States attorney in the U.S. Attorney's Office for the District of Maine, where she served as appellate chief from 2019 to 2022. Since 2022, she has served as a justice on the Maine Superior Court.

Nomination to court of appeals
On May 23, 2024, President Joe Biden announced his intent to nominate Lipez to serve as a United States circuit judge of the United States Court of Appeals for the First Circuit. On June 4, 2024, her nomination was sent to the Senate. President Biden nominated Lipez to the seat being vacated by Judge William J. Kayatta Jr., who will assume senior status upon confirmation of a successor. On June 20, 2024, a hearing on her nomination was held before the Senate Judiciary Committee. During her confirmation hearing, she was questioned by Republican senators over her sentencing in cases involving abuse against children. These sentencing decisions included suspending half of a sentence for an adult man who was found guilty of sexually abusing a 4-year-old and a 9-year-old child and suspending six years of a 10-year sentence for a woman who allowed drug trafficking operations to occur in her home, leading to her 14-month-old child's death from fentanyl exposure. Her nomination is pending before the Senate Judiciary Committee.

Personal life
She has been married to her husband, Nolan Ladislav Reichl since 2010. She is the daughter of Judge Kermit Lipez.