Julie Kearney is a Co-Chair of the Space Exploration and Innovation Practice and a partner in the Telecom group at DLA Piper. She is a globally recognized and dynamic lawyer in the technology, satellite, space, and telecommunications field. For more than 25 years, Julie has worked with governments, industries, and the public sector around the world to promote legal and regulatory frameworks and policies that enable life-changing technologies.

As the first Chief of the Space Bureau at the Federal Communications Commission (FCC), Julie represented and spoke for the Chairwoman and Commissioners on satellite and space-based communication matters and represented the Commission at the domestic and international level. Under Julie’s leadership, the FCC unanimously adopted several regulatory frameworks and launched initiatives to successfully advance industry leadership in the New Space Age. Additionally, during her tenure as Chief, the FCC adopted a regulatory structure for Supplemental Coverage from Space, which made the FCC the first regulator in the world to issue a framework for connecting satellites directly to consumer handsets using spectrum previously allocated only to terrestrial service.

Before joining the FCC, Julie served as the Vice President of Communications Regulatory Affairs and Policy at Twilio Inc., a publicly traded Communications Platform as a Service (CPaaS) provider, where she developed and implemented the company’s global telecommunications regulatory and policy and law enforcement response strategy. She also served as the Global Head of Communications Regulation and Policy for Loon, an Alphabet Inc. company, where she led international and US regulatory initiatives to bring internet access to unserved and underserved communities around the world via a network of balloons on the edge of space. She also held roles at the Consumer Technology Association, National Public Radio, MCI, and private legal practice.

Julie is a past president of the Federal Communications Bar Association (FCBA – The Tech Bar) and she also served as chair of the FCBA Foundation. She was a long-serving member of the Federal Communications Commission’s Consumer Advisory Committee and also served on its Broadband Deployment Advisory Committee. Other Board positions include USTelecom and the United States Technical Training Institute (USTTI).

Julie earned her B.A. from Mount Holyoke College and a J.D. from Catholic University’s Columbus School of Law, with a certificate from its Law and Technology Institute. She recently completed a 3.5 year term on the Columbus School of Law’s Board of Visitors. A trained singer, she has sung with choruses in the San Francisco Bay Area and Washington, DC area, most recently with Schola Cantorum (CA) and the Choral Arts Society of Washington (DC).