Gov. Janet Mills has nominated Julia Lipez to serve on the Maine Supreme Judicial Court.
Lipez has served as a Superior Court justice since 2022, the governor’s office said Friday morning.
Before joining the judicial branch, Lipez served as an assistant U.S. attorney for Maine from 2011 to 2022, the last three years as the chief of its appellate division. During her time in the U.S. attorney’s office, Lipez prosecuted cases of human trafficking, child exploitation, fraud and narcotics, according to the governor’s office.
“Throughout her service to Maine people – first as an Assistant U.S. Attorney and presently as a Justice of the Maine Superior Court – Justice Lipez has earned deep respect for her fairness, intellect, and commitment to the rule of law. Maine is lucky to have a jurist of Justice Lipez’s caliber as a nominee for the Supreme Judicial Court,” Mills said in a Friday statement.
In May 2024, President Joe Biden nominated Lipez, a Maine native who lives in Cape Elizabeth, to serve on the 1st U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Boston, but the Senate didn’t advance her nomination before adjourning in January.
Lipez is a graduate of Stanford Law School in California and Amherst College in Massachusetts. She has clerked for the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Baltimore and spent three years in private practice at the international law firm WilmerHale, according to the governor’s office.
“I am deeply honored by Governor Mills’ nomination to serve as an Associate Justice of the Maine Supreme Judicial Court,” Lipez said in a statement. “If confirmed, I will serve the people of Maine as I have throughout my career in law and public service – with a commitment to fairness and justice, and equality before the law.”
