Recognized in Ones to Watch since 2027 
Julia MacDonald represents clients in a range of subject matters, including complex commercial litigation, breach of contract claims, trade secrets theft, toxic tort litigation, antitrust claims, claims under the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act (RICO), constitutional matters, and appellate litigation.
Julia also maintains a robust pro bono practice, which spans from representing individuals facing eviction to authoring amicus briefs on pressing constitutional issues for state and national nonprofits.
Prior to joining Pierce Atwood, Julia served as a law clerk to the Honorable Jon D. Levy of the United States District Court for the District of Maine, where she gained a broad knowledge of federal practice and procedure and honed both her legal research and writing abilities. Following her clerkship, Julia worked as an associate at a small general practice firm in midcoast Maine.
While a student at the University of Maine School of Law, where she graduated first in her class, Julia gained a wide variety of litigation experiences. She completed a federal judicial externship with the Honorable John H. Rich III, obtained competitive summer internships in Manhattan and Portland, and served as a student attorney in both the Refugee & Human Rights Clinic and the Juvenile Justice Clinic. Julia also established herself as a student leader at Maine Law, serving the community as a teaching fellow for both Torts and Property, a Legal Writing teaching assistant, and a co-chair of the Multicultural Law Society.
Julia has won numerous awards and recognitions for her legal writing, including the Honorable Daniel E. Wathen First-Year Legal Writing Prize, the Upper-Level Writing Project Award, and the Judge John R. Brown Admiralty Moot Court Competition’s Best Petitioner Brief Award. In December of 2021, her comment Do No Harm or Injustice to Them: Indicting and Convicting Physicians for Controlled Substance Distribution in the Age of the Opioid Crisis, published in the Maine Law Review, was cited in three amicus briefs to the United States Supreme Court.
