Sara Lynch L’18

Sara is currently a Staff Attorney at Community Legal Services in Philadelphia. At CLS, she leads a project to assist people with serious disabilities who have limited or no income or resources obtain Supplemental Security Income (SSI). Through targeted support and community outreach, she ensures that people facing barriers to applying are able to get and keep this critical source of income.

A former teacher, Sara witnessed how an unfair distribution of resources deprives children and families of opportunity and stability. At Penn Law, Sara dedicated herself to balancing the scales through legal advocacy in a variety of settings. She participated in the Child Advocacy Clinic and the Public Defender Clinic, and she volunteered with the Youth Sentencing & Reentry Project (YSRP) directly on two cases and as the director of the YSRP-affiliated pro bono project, the Youth Advocacy Project (YAP). She was also the director of the School Discipline Advocacy Services (SDAS), Articles Editor of the Journal of Law and Social Change, a Wharton Non-Profit Board Fellow with Justice at Work, and a Vice President of Penn Law’s chapter of the Equal Justice Foundation (EJF).

After graduation, Sara was awarded a Penn Fellowship to work at the Defender Association of Philadelphia in the Children & Youth Justice Unit. As a fellow, she advocated for the education rights of youth involved in the juvenile justice system and she challenged the conditions of confinement imposed on youth in juvenile placement facilities.