Our People

Julie focuses her practice on local government and land use matters, counseling clients on land use, FOIA, open meetings, ethics, social media and many other topics.  She regularly attends board and commission meetings on behalf of the firm’s government clients. She has extensive experience negotiating annexation and development agreements, drafting zoning and other development regulations and approvals, and negotiating development projects, including TIF and special service area financing transactions. She also represents clients in land use disputes and defends clients in lawsuits brought in state and federal courts. 

Julie currently serves as City Attorney for Lake Forest and Park Ridge, and Village Attorney for Glenview, Gilberts, and Lindenhurst. She is counsel to the Glencoe Police Pension Board and numerous Illinois municipal libraries and library districts. She also serves as special counsel to government clients on FOIA, land use, and related matters.

Julie is co-chair of Ancel Glink's land use practice. She is editor of Ancel Glink Today, an e-newsletter distributed to firm clients twice each month. Julie is also the author of the local government blog, Municipal Minute, where she writes about current cases, laws, and other topics of interest to local government officials and employees.

Prior to her law career, Julie served for eight years in the United States Army, Military Intelligence Branch, as a Korean cryptologic-linguist.

Experience

Particular highlights of her recent practice include:

• Prepare administrative policies relating to FOIA, social media, electronic communications, medical marijuana, concealed carry, other personnel issues, and the conduct of zoning hearings
• Comprehensive rewrite of zoning, subdivision, sign, and other development regulations

• Conduct trainings on OMA, FOIA, social media, sexual harassment, and other personnel issues
• Successfully defended a municipality against a developer's equal protection challenge to the municipality's denial of a rezoning application for a student housing development
• Negotiated a settlement to enforce an agreement involving a mixed-use downtown development
• Successfully defended a municipality in an action by property owners challenging the annexation of certain property, affirmed by the Illinois appellate court

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Presentations

Julie is a frequent speaker at local and national conferences on a variety of local government and land use issues, including the following:  

• Legal and Ethical Issues With Social Media Use by Local Governments
• OMA, FOIA and Records Retention Training

• Development by Agreement
• Guns, Drugs & E-Cigarettes
• Municipalities and the First Amendment
• A DIY Guide to Drafting Ordinances & Resolutions (Minus the Hourly Rate)
• Vacant Properties and Foreclosures: Minimizing the Impacts and Maximizing the Opportunities

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Publications

Julie has published on a variety of land use, local government, and related matters, including the following: 

• Illinois Freedom of Information Act and Open Meetings Act (IICLE, 2016)
• Handling the Land Use Case (Thompson Reuters, 2016)

• Planning and Control of Land Development: Cases and Materials, Ninth Edition (Carolina Press, 2016)
• Social Media & Local Governments: Navigating the New Public Square (ABA Press, 2013)
• Land Use Law: Zoning in the 21st Century (LJP, 2015)
• Municipal Law Deskbook, Chapter on Open Meetings and Open Records Laws (ABA Press, 2015)
• Communicating in an Electronic Age (The Commissioner, 2014)
• The PAC Says…10 Guidelines from the PAC on the OMA’s Public Comment Requirement (IML Review, Sept. 2014)
• Municipal Annexation Handbook, Ancel Glink Library
• Development by Agreement: A Tool Kit for Land Developers and Local Governments (ABA Press, 2012)
• “Subdivisions, Subdivision Controls, and Drainage,” IICLE Municipal Law Series Handbook (2016)
• “To Tweet or Not to Tweet: Use of Social Networking in Land Use Planning and Regulation,” Zoning and Planning Law Report (May 2011)
• "The Big Chill? - The Likely Impact of Koontz on the Local Government/Developer Relationship," Touro Law Review, Vol. 30, Number 2 (2014)
• Bargaining for Development (ELI, July 2003)
• "Hard Times for Real Estate Developers and the Impact on Municipalities," Illinois Municipal Review (March 2008)

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Honors & Awards