Expertise in precise criminal appeals and strategic defense.
JC Advocacy is a Massachusetts practice built on precise legal analysis and disciplined written advocacy: for individuals seeking appellate relief, and for those facing serious criminal charges who want a strategist, not just an advocate.
Appeals are usually won or lost on the page. They're decided by the strength of the written record and the brief that argues from it. That work rewards patience, precision, and a genuine command of the record. It is the work this practice is built around.
Why our appellate work is different.
Trial work and appellate work call for different instincts. A trial lawyer persuades a jury in real time. An appellate lawyer builds an argument for judges who will read it closely, more than once, looking for exactly where the law was misapplied or the record was insufficient.
That distinction is often lost in how criminal defense is marketed. Most firms present themselves primarily as trial lawyers who also handle appeals. Few attorneys build deep, active experience in both disciplines, and having tried cases and later argued their outcomes on appeal sharpens judgment in both directions: knowing how a record is built shapes how it's argued, and knowing how a record is scrutinized on appeal shapes how it's built at trial. This practice is built the other way: appellate analysis and brief writing as the primary discipline, informed by real trial and prosecutorial experience across the full range of serious criminal matters, not treated as an afterthought to it.
Attorney Julianne Campbell draws on trial and appellate experience across nearly every category of serious criminal charge in Massachusetts, including homicide, sexual assault, firearms, and drug trafficking matters, in the Boston Municipal, District, and Superior Courts. She has appeared across Middlesex, Suffolk, Bristol, Plymouth, and Barnstable counties. She's also appeared and argued extensively before the Massachusetts Appeals Court and Supreme Judicial Court, including cases that resulted in changes to Massachusetts law. That range informs how each case is evaluated from the outset.
Before founding JC Advocacy, Attorney Campbell spent her career prosecuting criminal cases across Massachusetts, including homicide, sexual assault, and firearms offenses, before moving to focus on criminal defense and appellate practice.
That dual perspective, having built cases for the Commonwealth and having taken them apart on appeal, shapes how every case here is approached.
Read the full background