Sarah Ortlip-Sommers

Sarah will join the Family Justice Law Center, which uses impact litigation to challenge unconstitutional policies and practices in the child welfare system that inflict illegal and horrific abuse on families caught up in its web.

Before joining FJLC, Sarah was a Justice Catalyst Fellow with Public Justice’s Access to Justice Project, where she litigated against state and corporate abuse in carceral institutions and court secrecy in civil rights lawsuits. She clerked for the Honorable Nitza I. Quiñones Alejandro on the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania after graduating as a Harlan Fiske Stone Scholar from Columbia Law School.

At CLS, Sarah participated in the Immigrants’ Rights Clinic, was a pro bono researcher with the ACLU Immigrants’ Rights Project, and served as Editor-in-Chief of the Columbia Journal of Gender and Law. Sarah became committed to a legal career advocating for those with less power while working with an immigration attorney serving asylum seekers on Martha's Vineyard, where Sarah grew up. 

Fellowship type: Justice Catalyst

Organization: Family Justice Law Center

Project name: Challenging Abuses in the Child Welfare System