2008 Miles L. Rubin Award Recipient: Julia R. Wilson ’98
Julia R. Wilson currently serves as the Executive Director of the Legal Aid Association of California (LAAC) and the Public Interest Clearinghouse (PIC). As Executive Director of the sister organizations, she is responsible for leading statewide advocacy eff orts on behalf of the legal services delivery system, undertaking multiple statewide strategic planning initiatives, and serving as the legal services community’s liaison to key access to justice partners.
Ms. Wilson graduated summa cum laude from the University of California at Los Angeles and with distinction from Stanford Law School. Before her work with LAAC and PIC, Ms. Wilson spent almost seven years at the Legal Aid Society of San Mateo County. Ms. Wilson first obtained funding to create her own direct legal services program, focusing on the timely intersection of national and local welfare reform and the Americans with Disabilities Act. She then received a prestigious national Equal Justice Works (then NAPIL) Fellowship to expand and continue the work of her project. Ms. Wilson later became the Legal Aid Society’s first Pro Bono Coordinator and eventually also served as Directing Attorney, before being selected as the Director of the Legal Aid Association of California (LAAC).
After almost three years of leading LAAC, she was tapped in 2007 to become the joint Executive Director of LAAC and its partner organization, the Public Interest Clearinghouse. Ms. Wilson was also appointed to the State Bar of California’s Standing Committee on the Delivery of Legal Services and is active in numerous statewide collaborations relevant to PIC and LAAC’s work, including the Bench Bar Coalition and committees of the California Access to Justice Commission.