Julia Spiegel

Julia is an award-winning attorney who has championed fundamental freedoms at the highest levels of federal, state, and local government. In 2024, Julia launched GovAct — creating a central platform for cross-state coordination to protect fundamental freedoms and improve people’s lives. GovAct builds upon Julia’s work founding the 23-governor Reproductive Freedom Alliance as senior advisor to California Governor Gavin Newsom. Julia’s innovative strategy to stockpile medication abortion drugs helped governors proactively protect access across the country — an approach featured in a New York Times’ profile on leaders fighting to protect democracy. Before her state service, Julia litigated high-impact cases on immigration, voting rights, and other matters in the Santa Clara County Counsel’s Office; served as senior advisor to U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Samantha Power; clerked for Judge M. Margaret McKeown on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit; and researched on armed conflict in east Africa. She has taught several law and policy courses on foreign affairs at Stanford University. Julia earned a B.A. from Stanford University, M.P.A. from Princeton University’s School of Public and International Affairs, and J.D. from Yale Law School. She has won multiple awards and honors, including the California Lawyer Attorneys of the Year and Squire Patton Boggs Foundation Distinguished Fellow awards. She is a life member of the Council on Foreign Relations, an Appellate Lawyer Representative to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit, and National Advisory Board member of Stanford’s Haas Center for Public Service.