Julia McLaughlin

About Julia McLaughlin

In 2018, Professor Julia H. McLaughlin joined the law firm of Cleaveland & Cleaveland, where she brings over thirty years of legal and teaching experience to the practice, focusing on marriage dissolution, paternity, parenting, support, alimony, equitable distribution, and marital agreements. She also practices in the area of Trusts and Estates. Ms. McLaughlin is a member of the American Bar Association and the Florida Bar Association. She is the former president of the Betty Griffin Center Board of Directors and has served on the Florida Bar Association CLE Committee. Julia obtained her undergraduate degree from Princeton University and her law degree from the University of Wisconsin Law School, where she served as the Note and Comment Editor of the University of Wisconsin Law Review. Following her graduation from law school in 1987, she became a member of the Pennsylvania Bar and worked for a large Philadelphia law firm with a boutique family law department. She handled a wide variety of family law matters, drafted numerous premarital agreements, and provided pro bono representation to children identified by the court as abused or neglected. After practicing law for twelve years, Ms. McLaughlin joined the faculty of Villanova Law School, in Radner, Pennsylvania, where she taught legal research and writing for a year. She then joined the faculty of Widener University Law School, in Wilmington, Delaware, where she also taught legal writing. In 2004, Ms. McLaughlin relocated to Jacksonville, Florida and joined the Florida Coastal School of Law faculty in where she taught a wide variety of courses including Family Law, Children and the Law, Dependency Law, Juvenile Justice Administration, Domestic Violence and Property Law, until 2018. She has published widely in the area of family law and children?s rights. Some of her publications include: Taking Religion out of Divorce, 65 RUTGERS L. REV. 395 (2013); Exploring the First Amendment Rights of Teens in Relationship to Sexting and Censorship, 45 U. MICH. J. L. REFORM 315 (2012); Crime and Punishment: Teen Sexting in Context, 115 PENN. ST. L. REV. 135 (2010); The Fundamental Truth about Best Interests, 54 ST. LOUIS U.L.J. 113 (2009); 5) DOMA and the Constitutional Coming-out of Same-sex Marriage, 24 WIS. J.L GEN. & SOC?Y 145 (2009); Premarital Agreements & Choice of Law: ?One, Two, Three, Baby You and Me,? 72 MO. L. REV. 793 (2007); Litigation Funding: Charting a Legal and Ethical Course, 31 VT. L. REV. 615 (2007); and Should Marital Property Rights Be Inalienable? Preserving the Marriage Ante, 82 NEB. L. REV. 460 (2003).