‘Part-time’ lawyer raising the bar on TikTok
Sister of Jays pitcher has amassed more than 100,000 followers for her influencer videos
Julia Romano wants to get one thing straight: although her brother is the lights-out pitcher for the Toronto Blue Jays, she’s the famous one in the Romano family.
Well, if you ask her, she’s a “fulltime famous person and a parttime lawyer.”
Since Romano began posting videos on her TikTok account, @julesthelawyer, in 2020 — mainly to add some life and laughter back into her days during the COVID-19 pandemic — she’s amassed more than 100,000 followers and 5.6 million likes. “I thought I was making it big being like a first-year associate on Bay Street,” Romano said.
But, unlike some influencers, she didn’t start posting regularly to make money. She wanted to be famous. “Like, that’s what I wanted — to be famous on TikTok,” Romano told the Star in an interview.
She’s famous enough, considering her following and likes are nearly double the population of Toronto, or106 times the capacity of the Rogers Centre, where her brother takes the mound.
It’s become her signature on the platform — being a “famous person” — with comedic videos that often start with, “Welcome to a day in my life as a famous person living in downtown Toronto,” or, “Hey TikTok, come spend a date night with a Toronto celebrity.”
And, in typical celebrity fashion, Romano is sometimes recognized by fans in public when she’s walking around in the city.
“I think when I started the fame journey, I didn’t realize how much social interaction there would be when you are a famous person. So I find it a bit awkward,” she said. “But for the most part, I like it.”
You never know what you’ll see scrolling through her account, with content ranging from filling a prescription to attending influencer events, to clips of her “feminist household” where she jokes her fiancé, David, pays for everything. Their “children,” two sphinx cats named Jojo and Raisin, are often featured and have developed a fan base of their own.
“Whenever my videos aren’t doing that good, I’m like, ‘Babe, we need to do a voice-over together,’ ” Romano said. “But (David) loves it for me. He also likes that I have a hobby that’s not just, like, watching ‘Real Housewives.’ ”
Her manager, Alexa Burban of Platform Media & Management Inc, has also become part of Romano’s narrative on TikTok, with Romano often joking that Burban is yelling at her behind the scenes to film content to build up her brand.
“I was sending her profiles of people who I thought she could be similar to, and she has kind of done pretty much the complete opposite,” Burban said. “But she’s doing it in her own way. And she’s owning it.”
Romano’s content is mostly comedic and lighthearted, but she isn’t afraid of being earnest on the platform — she’s documented the trials and tribulations of being a full-time corporate lawyer on Bay Street and being reprimanded at work for her online presence.
She eventually quit her corporate job, and now works as a lawyer at a non-profit legal clinic by day and moonlights as a content creator.
“Everyone on TikTok is like, ‘I can’t believe you were a (corporate) lawyer.’ And I’m like, ‘I don’t want to talk about it.’ ”
Romano may have always been destined to be famous — after all, she shares genetics with her professional athlete brother, Jordan Romano, a pitcher for the Blue Jays. But she’s coming for his thunder.
“He’s like, ‘Literally every single day when I’m in the bullpen, someone is yelling at me that I’m @julesthelawyers’s brother,’ ” Romano said. “I would feel bad, but growing up being the sister of a baseball player, everyone’s like, ‘How’s Jordan? How’s Jordan?’ Like, I’m good, too. So now, he’s getting it back.”
He’s also getting shade on TikTok, too. People at the Rogers Centre often film videos of Jays games saying they’re at a @julesthelawyer meet and greet when Romano steps up to the pitch and their last name is plastered on the jumbotrons. “This is my payback,” Romano said, laughing.
And while she doesn’t see herself quitting her job as a lawyer to be a full-time content creator, she’s proud of sticking with it, regardless of what her old job thought about her hobby.
Everyone on TikTok is like, ‘I can’t believe you were a (corporate) lawyer.’
JULIA ROMANO