About Julia
Julia Rueschemeyer trained first as an economist and then as a lawyer. She earned a degree in economics from Brown University in 1987 and completed her J.D. at the University of Pennsylvania Law School in 1991. Those classroom years laid a foundation for a career that has crossed public interest work, legal education and private practice.
Her legal career began in a judicial setting. In 1991 she served as a law clerk to the Honorable Phyllis W. Beck on the Superior Court of Pennsylvania. She moved to California in the early 1990s to take staff roles in legal services. In 1993 she worked with the Legal Aid Foundation of Los Angeles at the Maynard Toll Clinic, and the following year she joined The Harriett Buhai Center for Family Law as a staff lawyer. Those positions centered on client work in family law and public interest representation.
By 1997 Rueschemeyer was practicing family law in Rhode Island at Rhode Island Legal Services. She then transitioned into legal education and administration. In 1998 she became director of the Feinstein Institute for Legal Service at Roger Williams University School of Law. That role combined program oversight with efforts to expand access to legal services through a law school clinic model.
In 2003 she established her own practice, listed as Lawyer Julia Rueschemeyer Divorce Mediation, and later consolidated her work in Massachusetts. She holds membership in several professional organizations that reflect a practice centered on mediation and family dispute resolution. She is a member of the Massachusetts Collaborative Law Council under its collaborative law program, and she belongs to the Massachusetts Council on Family Mediation. She also maintains memberships in the Hampshire County and Berkshire County Bar Associations and participates in The Divorce Center, a group that studies the divorce process and its impact on families.
Rueschemeyer’s background spans courtroom, clinic and mediation settings. Early work in legal aid exposed her to the needs of low-income families and shaped her approach to problem solving in contested matters. Service in a law school institute added experience in training and program management. In private practice she has concentrated on divorce mediation and collaborative processes as alternatives to litigation.
She practices in Massachusetts and maintains offices in Springfield and Amherst. Her practice brings together experience in public interest family law, legal education and mediated dispute resolution. Her current practice focuses on divorce mediation and related family law matters.
