Justin joined Miner, Barnhill & Galland’s transactional practice in 2022 and brings with him a deep and diverse legal background. Justin is a client-focused, relationship-driven advisor whose experience ranges from representing billion-dollar entities at an international large law firm to providing legal advocacy, organizing, and leadership to support historic wins for communities in non-profit settings. He is passionate about utilizing his legal expertise to serve others and the common good, and his broad transactions and public service experience equips him to provide trustworthy counsel to a wide range of not-for-profit entities.

Justin began his legal career as a corporate associate at McDermott Will & Emery where he worked on matters ranging from mergers and acquisitions to corporate finance across industries such as healthcare and cannabis, as well as not-for-profit 501(c)(3) formation. Justin went on to serve as a voting rights attorney at Asian Americans Advancing Justice | Chicago where he led and organized community members around creating Chicago’s first Asian American majority ward in Chinatown during the 2021-22 redistricting cycle. Outside his traditional legal practice, Justin is an LGBTQ+ rights leader and advocate, having drafted a groundbreaking statute and testified in front of state lawmakers to allow for multi-stall gender-inclusive restrooms across Illinois, which were banned by law.

Justin graduated from Loyola University Chicago School of Law, where he was an editor on the Loyola University Chicago Law Journal and Co-Chair of the Graduate, Professional, and Adult Council (Graduate Student Government). During law school, Justin honed his legal skills by working on child-law policy advocacy as a Public Interest Law Initiative (PILI) Fellow at the Loyola Legislation & Policy Clinic and by providing family law counseling to low-income veterans as a Student Clinician in the Loyola Veterans’ Practicum. He also served in Summer Associate roles at both McDermott Will & Emery and Kelley Drye & Warren. Before law school, Justin graduated from Emory University in Atlanta, Georgia where he authored an honors thesis about “what makes us happy”.

• Chicago Bar Association, Co-Chair of LGBTQ+ Committee, June 2023 to present
• LGBTQ+ Victory Fund, Victory Campaign Board Member, January 2023 to present
• Chicago Board of Election Commissioners, Election Judge, June 2022, November 2022, and February 2023
• Public Interest Law Initiative (PILI), Alumni Network Leadership Council Member, June 2022 to present
• Loyola University Chicago School of Law, Chairman of Recent Alumni Engagement Ambassadors, July 2021 to March 2023

• Victory Empowerment Fellowship, LGBTQ Victory Institute, Class of 2022

• Justin Ian Sia, Gender-inclusive bathrooms are a win for Illinois, Crain’s Chicago Business (June 20, 2023) (op-ed)
• Andrew Santella, Voting Rights Warriors, Loyola Lawyers Fight for All Voices To Be Heard, Loyola Law Magazine (Summer 2022) (alumni feature)
• Justin Ian Sia and Grace Chan McKibben, Chicago’s Asian Americans demand a voice and a choice in our democracy, Crain’s Chicago Business (November 9, 2021) (op-ed)

Illinois (2021)