AFCC California is Proud to Present Julia F. Weber, JD, MSW with the 2026 Joseph Drown Award for Outstanding Services to Children.
Julia F. Weber, JD, MSW, has spent her career developing innovative, practical approaches to complex issues affecting families, children, and communities. She is a nationally recognized consultant and speaker on firearm policy, domestic violence, family law, and the implementation of evidence-based practices across civil and criminal legal systems.
In addition to her consulting practice, Julia currently works with the California Judicial Council—the policymaking body for the state court system—in the Criminal Justice Services Division, where she focuses on firearm policy implementation in the courts.
Her work includes providing technical assistance, developing court protocols, delivering training for judges and court staff, and serving as a subject-matter expert on firearm violence prevention policies. Julia collaborated on multiple amicus briefs in United States v. Rahimi (2024), the U.S. Supreme Court case upholding the federal firearm prohibition in civil domestic violence matters, and she has written and presented nationally on the decision and its implications.
In 2023, she served as Director of the National Center on Gun Violence in Relationships. Immediately prior, she spent four years at Giffords Law Center to Prevent Gun Violence as its first Implementation Director, leading efforts to translate legislation into effective, on-the-ground practice. Julia has helped draft and successfully advocate for major California firearm and family-law policies, including SB 320 (firearms relinquishment in domestic violence cases), SB 899 (expanding relinquishment to additional case types), SB 599 (child custody and visitation when firearms are at issue), and the 2021 state budget allocation of $40 million to support firearms relinquishment efforts in the courts.
From 1999 to 2017, Julia worked with the California Judicial Council, serving as co-counsel to the Family and Juvenile Law Advisory Committee and staffing statewide initiatives on family law, domestic violence, and access to justice. During this time, she helped develop rules of court and judicial forms, authored key court procedures, and provided extensive training to judges and court professionals. Over her 17 years with the Center for Families, Children & the Courts, she also led training and technical assistance for judges and Family Court Services, including statewide programs on domestic violence and new-professional education, and staffed the Elkins Family Law Task Force, with particular focus on children’s participation, mediation, domestic violence, and the role of minor’s counsel.
Julia served as an adjunct professor of domestic violence law at Golden Gate University School of Law from 2016 to 2022 and previously taught courses on race, gender, and law at Washington University in St. Louis, where she earned her joint degrees in law and social work, as well as her undergraduate degree in Women’s Studies. Her recent publications include a forthcoming article in Domestic Violence Report on emerging state legislation at the intersection of firearms and domestic violence, and the first national toolkit on firearms, domestic violence, and child custody for attorneys, judges, and mental health professionals, developed in collaboration with Pierce’s Pledge. Julia began her career as a child custody mediator in St. Louis County Family Court and later represented children and consulted on domestic violence policy.
Before moving to California in 1999, she developed the first domestic violence workplace policy for a multinational corporation with more than 20,000 employees and the first Family Violence Council for St. Louis City. Julia has taught classes for attorneys on how to draw and enjoys drawing cartoons and taking sketchnotes. She loves to cook—especially elaborate, complicated meals for as many people as she can fit in her house—co-created a zine about natural wine, does autobiographical storytelling on stage for San Francisco audiences, and used to have a small dessert business on the side when she was mediating family law cases early in her career. Julia lives in San Francisco’s Bernal Heights with her partner and their son, who is a photographer.