Meet Our Team

Julie Burgener is a partner in the Chicago-area office with over 20 years of legal experience. Before joining Pellis Law Group, LLP, she represented insurance companies in disputes with corporate policyholders and worked at a mutual insurance company. Julie has extensive experience with all aspects of complex commercial litigation and counseling in non-litigated commercial disputes. Her prior work focused on insurance coverage matters, including coverage for environmental contamination, asbestos injury claims, and sexual abuse claims.

Since joining Pellis Law Group, she has shifted her focus to representing policyholders. Julie is known for handling complex, nation-wide, long-tail insurance coverage matters in state, federal, and bankruptcy courts. She has handled cases involving many insurance types, including commercial general liability, media liability, environmental liability, directors and officers coverage, professional liability, management liability, and employment practices liability insurance. While Julie has extensive litigation experience, she also looks for the most efficient resolution for our clients and seeks to conclude matters without the expense of litigation when possible.

In addition to law, Julie has a passion for continued learning and development. Julie earned a certification in Coaching for Learning and Performance and took additional courses in a graduate program for Learning and Organizational Change with coursework in change management, adult learning, and executive coaching. She also created an adventure rock climbing retreat focused on communication, trust, and mindfulness. Julie is a direct and diplomatic communicator and has a reputation for her superior attention to detail and follow-through, ability to mentor and develop people, commitment to clients, and positive and fun attitude while working in demanding situations. We have tapped into these coaching and mentoring skills at the firm and have benefited from her efforts to improve internal communication among the entire office. Unique is an overused term, but when it comes to Julie, it is without question appropriate. We are fortunate to have her as part of our team, and we continue to learn from her teaching.

Before joining Pellis Law Group, Julie was a partner at Troutman Sanders, an international law firm, and Ross, Dixon & Bell, a boutique insurance coverage firm. Julie was also Counsel in Member Services at Alas, Inc., a mutual insurance company providing professional liability insurance to major law firms.