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Julie Karaba (JD ’14) Named 2016 Bristow Fellow

December 17, 2015

Northwestern Pritzker School of Law alumna Julie Karaba (JD ’14) was recently named a Bristow Fellow. The one-year fellowship with the US Office of the Solicitor General (OSG), which will begin in the summer of 2016, is generally awarded each year to four recent law school graduates with outstanding academic records who have federal appellate clerkship experience.

Bristow Fellow Julie Karaba
Bristow Fellow Julie Karaba (JD '14)

“We were thrilled to learn that Julie will be joining the Solicitor General's office next year,” said Sarah O’Rourke Schrup, director of the Bluhm Legal Clinic’s Appellate Advocacy Center. “Based on our work with her in the Supreme Court clinic, it is just so clear that her focus, drive, and extraordinary legal acumen is a perfect fit for the Bristow Fellowship. It is an incredible opportunity, and I am sure that she will do a wonderful job in that role.”

Karaba, who is currently clerking for the Honorable Brett M. Kavanaugh of the US Court of Appeals for the DC Circuit, credits a number of classes, faculty members including Professors Calabresi, Delaney, Pfander, and Redish, and several experiences—including the Supreme Court clinic—with solidifying her interest in appellate work and her decision to apply for the fellowship. She also worked at the Supreme Court before attending law school and was able to see firsthand what a valuable experience a fellowship in the Solicitor General’s office would be.

“I was able to observe dozens of oral arguments and was struck by how often and how well the Solicitor General and his assistants argue before the Court.  The Solicitor General plays an invaluable role in discerning and advocating the United States' interests,” Karaba said.

Bristow Fellows assist OSG attorneys in preparing briefs and arguments for Supreme Court cases where the federal government is a party.

“The SG’s office is often considered the best ‘appellate boutique’ in the country,” Karaba said. “I am excited to learn all I possibly can about written and oral advocacy from the SG and the team of attorneys in his office, and I am eager to watch up close as they make crucial judgments about the United States' views on the most important legal issues making their way through the federal courts.”

Prior to her current clerkship, Karaba clerked for the Honorable Gary S. Feinerman of the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Illinois. While at the Law School, she served as senior articles editor for the Northwestern University Law Review and on the executive board of the Women’s Leadership Coalition. Her senior research project with Martin Redish, Louis and Harriet Ancel Professor of Law and Public Policy, was published as “One Size Doesn’t Fit All: Multidistrict Litigation, Due Process, and the Dangers of Procedural Collectivism,” in the Boston University Law Review and recognized by Reuters as one of the most important procedure articles of the year.

“Julie was truly an outstanding student. She performed with distinction as my Civil Procedure teaching assistant and through her senior research project. She is the kind of student who reminds me why I went into legal academia all those years ago,” Redish said.

Karaba follows in the footsteps of recent fellow alumni Jonathan Shaub (JD ’11) and Elana Nightingale Dawson (JD ’11), who also served as Bristow Fellows.