Julie Pruitt Barry is a trial and appellate attorney with more than 25 years of experience in state and federal courts including the Massachusetts Appeals Court, Superior Courts, Land Court, Probate Court, and the U.S. District Court, and First Circuit Court of Appeals.  She represents developers, commercial and residential property owners, businesses, and individuals.

Julie’s practice focuses on commercial and residential real estate and land use litigation and permitting, including zoning and planning, affordable housing, cannabis, renewable energy, historic districts, title and easements, construction, and insurance coverage.  She also represents clients in state and federal environmental administrative matters including wetlands and tidelands, and hazardous waste under both state and federal Superfund Acts, MA Chapter 21E, and CERCLA, as well as in mediation and arbitration proceedings.

Julie successfully defended a commercial and residential property owner against an abutter’s appeals of a groundwater conditional use permit granted by the Boston Zoning Board of Appeals both at trial in Suffolk Superior Court and on appeal (Perry v. Boston ZBA, 100 Mass.App.Ct. 138 (2021), as well as a Certificate of Appropriateness granted by the Back Bay Architectural Commission at trial in Suffolk Superior Court, which was not appealed, for a highly visible mixed use residential, retail and office building on Newbury Street in Boston.

Julie successfully represented a developer of affordable housing against an anti-SLAPP claim in the Massachusetts Appeals Court, which lead to an opinion deemed by MA Lawyers Weekly to be one of the Most Important Opinions of 2013 (Coalition to Preserve the Belmont Uplands et al. v. Commissioner of the Department of Environmental Protection, et al., 84 Mass. App. Ct. 1118; unpublished).

Julie obtained a favorable decision for a client engineering firm from the Massachusetts Appeals Court, which found that a professional engineering firm employed by a town to review the development of subdivisions in the town does not owe a duty of care to a developer or its contractor absent a showing that the developer reasonably relied on the peer reviewer’s advice and the peer reviewer was aware of the reliance. (Meridian at Windchime, Inc. v. Earth Tech, Inc., 81 Mass. App. Ct. 128, 2012).

Honors & Awards

• June 28, 2021:  Named a “Go To Commercial Real Estate Lawyer” by Massachusetts Lawyers Weekly
• 2020 – present:  Recognized by “Best Lawyers in America®” in the fields of Environmental Law and Real Estate Law
• 2017-2021: Named a Massachusetts “Super Lawyer”
• 2015 Top Women of Law Honoree, Massachusetts Lawyers Weekly

Publications

• July 17, 2020, Prince Lobel Client Alert, “Energy and Environmental Standards for Cannabis Businesses Now in Effect”
• January 2020, REBAnews, “Asbestos Exposure and Clean Air Initiatives”
• Prince Lobel Client Alert, “New Massachusetts Report Issued on Asbestos Exposure and Public Protection Initiatives,” November 26, 2019

Education

• Suffolk University Law School, J.D., 1992
• University of South Florida, B.A., 1988

Bar Admissions

• Massachusetts
• United States District Court for the District of Massachusetts
• United States Court of Appeals for the First Circuit
• United States Tax Court

Memberships & Affiliations

• Real Estate Bar Association for Massachusetts, President-elect; Executive Committee; Board of Directors
• Real Estate Bar Association, Co-chair Environmental Law Committee and Strategic Communications Section
• Environmental Business Council of New England, Energy Resources Committee Leadership Team
• CREW Boston
• New England Women in Energy and the Environment (NEWIEE)
• Women’s Bar Association
• Boston Bar Association