Associate Professor Julia Belian, although less than a century old herself, finds deep satisfaction in learning and teaching the ancient roots and contemporary twists of Property Law and Estates & Trusts, which are also her primary areas of scholarship. Before joining UDM in the fall of 2008, Belian served as a Visiting Associate Professor of Law at the University of Missouri-Kansas City from 2006-2008, where she was given the Tiera Farrow Faculty Award by the Association of Women Law Students and was also named Most Outstanding Professor by the Graduating Class of 2008. From 2002 to 2006, Belian was on the faculty at Creighton University School of Law in Omaha, Nebraska.

Belian’s higher education began in her native Texas, where she earned a Bachelor of Arts degree in Philosophy cum laude in 1980 from Southwestern University in Georgetown, Texas. She worked as an editor at a mid-sized daily newspaper for nearly ten years before earning a Master of Divinity degree at Yale University in 1993 and her J.D., with distinction, at Emory University in Atlanta, Georgia, in 1996. At Emory, Belian served as Editor-in-Chief of the Emory International Law Review, received the Clark Boardman Callaghan Award for Outstanding Contribution to the Law School, and was elected to the Order of the Coif. She has practiced in both Minnesota (Faegre & Benson, LLP) and California (Morrison & Foerster, LLP), with most of her experience in the fields of estate planning and exempt organization law.