JULIE A. FERNANDES is a Principal in The Raben Group’s Health and Education and Constitution and Justice Practice Groups, where she provides strategic advice and counsel to help clients advance their public policy goals.

Prior to joining The Raben Group, Ms. Fernandes was the Senior Policy Analyst and Senior Counsel at the Leadership Conference on Civil Rights, the nation’s oldest, largest and most diverse civil and human rights coalition.  Her work focused on policy development and advocacy in the areas of voting rights, criminal justice reform and civil rights enforcement.
 
In 2006, Ms. Fernandes successfully led the civil rights community’s effort to reauthorize the Voting Rights Act of 1965.  Prior to her position with LCCR, Ms. Fernandes worked for the U.S. Department of Justice where she served as a trial attorney in the Civil Rights Division and as Counsel to the Assistant Attorney General for Civil Rights, Bill Lann Lee.  In that position, Ms. Fernandes worked primarily on legal and policy issues related to voting rights, international human rights, and police misconduct, including racial profiling.
 
Ms. Fernandes also served as Special Assistant to President Bill Clinton at the White House Domestic Policy Council where her work focused on the development of policy in the areas of immigration, race relations, and civil rights.
 
Ms. Fernandes received both her J.D. and A.B. degrees from the University of Chicago. After law school, she was the Karpatkin Fellow in the National Legal Department of the American Civil Liberties Union, where she focused on race and poverty issues, and clerked for the Honorable Diane P. Wood at the United States Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit.