About eight years ago, Julia Craft moved into the law offices of Joseph & Hollander as a tenant.

This week, the former prosecutor and family law attorney is becoming a named partner of the firm.

The 11-year-old firm, which has its main office at 500 N. Market, is changing its name to Joseph, Hollander & Craft, effective this week.

“We were impressed, if not astonished, with her work ethic and really her presence in the family (law) area,” Ross Hollander, the firm’s president, said of getting to know and then hire Craft. “And it (family law) was an area, as it turned out, we were trying to grow.”

Craft becomes the fourth partner in the firm. The others are Hollander, Steve Joseph — who founded the firm with Hollander — and Chris Joseph, Steve Joseph’s son.

The firm also has offices in Lawrence and Topeka. It employs 13 attorneys and 26 staff.

Craft said Wednesday that she was sharing office space with another Wichita attorney, Jay Horvath, when they decided in 2004 to move into new space in the Joseph & Hollander building at Central and Market.

A few years later, Steve Joseph approached Craft about working for the firm, she said, at which point she became counsel for the firm. She then became a partner in the firm last year.

Craft said the more she thought about joining the firm, the more it made sense because her volume of work has been steadily increasing.

“There’s just no shortage of business,” she said.

From 1982 to 1989, Craft was an assistant district attorney in Sedgwick County, largely prosecuting sex offenses. She is a graduate of Wichita State University and the University of Kansas School of Law.

Besides family law, the firm also specializes in criminal and civil litigation; employment and labor law; commercial law; professional discipline; and computer crimes.

By Jerry Siebenmark
The Wichita Eagle