Julie O. Petrini focuses her practice at the firm on pro bono work in the immigration, criminal justice and civil legal aid fields.  She is a Fellow with the Massachusetts Access to Justice Commission and serves on the Boston Advisory Board for Kids In Need of Defense (KIND). Julie litigates cases for KIND as well as The New England Innocence Project and has handled matters for the Clemency Project 2014 and the Massachusetts Equal Justice Fund, among other public interest organizations.

Julie previously was Vice President and Deputy General Counsel at Microsoft, where she led the commercial legal team for Microsoft North America.   Julie and her team supported the United States and Canada businesses, spending much of their time with customers, partners and policy-makers explaining, evangelizing, and negotiating arrangements for Microsoft’s cloud offerings. She joined Microsoft from Skype, where Julie was Vice President and General Counsel-Operations managing the commercial and Intellectual Property legal teams and helped to navigate the path to its acquisition by Microsoft.   She was also Vice President and General Counsel –Operations at 3Com Corporation, and was Vice President and General Counsel of Polaroid Corporation.  Julie started her career as a litigator at Katten, Muchin & Zavis in Chicago before moving to the Boston area to join Hale and Dorr. 

Julie has spoken on local and national panels on topics ranging from intellectual property protection to diversity and inclusion in corporate America.  She taught Trademark Law courses at Suffolk University School of Law.  Julie has been recognized as a Leader in the Law by Massachusetts Lawyers Weekly and New England In-House.

Julie is a graduate of Duke University School of Law, received her B.A. in English (cum laude) from Boston College and is admitted to practice in Commonwealth of Massachusetts, the State of Illinois and the Northern District of Illinois.