Sarah Adkins

Sarah is the Founding Executive Director of Neighbors Immigration Clinic. She is a public interest attorney who has focused her career on advocating for underrepresented populations.

Sarah mostly recently served as an Assistant Attorney General under Andy Beshear in the Office of Civil and Environmental Law and handled civil litigation at every level of state and federal court. Prior to that, she completed a federal clerkship with the Honorable Judge Van Tatenhove of the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Kentucky. While there, she assisted with a wide variety of criminal and civil cases, including criminal and civil trials. Sarah began her legal career representing immigrants in a wide variety of cases at Maxwell Street Legal Clinic funded by a Public Service Venture Fund Fellowship from Harvard Law School.

Sarah obtained her J.D. from Harvard Law School. While there, she represented immigration clients and advocated for change with the Harvard Immigration Project and the Harvard Immigration and Refugee Clinic. She also served as Review Editor for the Latino Law Review and was a member and officer in several student groups, including the Harvard Africa Law Association. She interned with Massachusetts Advocates for Children, the Middlesex County District Attorney in the Child Protection Unit, and the Kentucky Attorney General’s Office. With the Ghana Project Clinic, she traveled to Ghana to document human rights abuses committed by the new oil industry. She totaled over 950 pro bono hours while in law school.

Sarah is a lifelong Kentuckian and was born and raised in Somerset, Kentucky. She attended Campbellsville University in Campbellsville, Kentucky, for her Undergraduate degree and graduated Valedictorian. During college, she studied abroad for a semester at Uganda Christian University and lived with a Ugandan host family. After Campbellsville, she served in AmeriCorps at Bethany House Abuse Shelter in Somerset and also worked at Lake Cumberland Children’s Advocacy Center.