Sarah Sadlier

Sarah Sadlier was a student fellow with the Center on the Legal Profession, where she is focused on completing a paper, “Invisible No More: Harvard Law School’s Native American Graduates and Their Contributions to Indian Country,” which endeavors to identify who Native HLS students were, describe their educational and tribal backgrounds, and chart their career trajectories.

Sarah graduated with a JD in 2022 and is a History PhD Candidate at Harvard, specializing in Native American History with a secondary field in Studies of Women, Gender, and Sexuality (WGS). As an undergraduate at Stanford, she quadruple majored in American Studies (with Honors), History (with Honors), Iberian and Latin American Cultures, and Political Science (secondary major) with Distinction. She completed her master’s in Modern Thought and Literature in 2017 at Stanford and her master’s in History in 2019 at Harvard. She is the recipient of over fifty academic awards, grants, and fellowships, including Harvard Law School’s fully-funded merit fellowship and Harvard University’s Presidential Scholarship and Presidential Public Service Fellowship.

At Harvard Law School, Sarah is Vice President/Coordinating, Diversity & Outreach of the Harvard Law Review, an HLS Admissions Fellow, Co-Chair of the Law Review’s Public Interest Committee, the HLS Legal History Student Fellow, and a Legal Professions Center Student Fellow. In the past, she has served as the Co-President of the Native American Law Students Association, Student Liaison for the Disability Law Students Association, Co-Director of HLS Talks, and the ACS Director of Professor and Practitioner Engagement. She also was an editor on six HLS journals, a Student Government Academic Affairs Committee member, a Women’s Law Association Academic Affairs Committee member, and a West Coast Club representative. Over the last year, she has been a student in the Election Law Clinic, LGBTQ+ Advocacy Clinic, and Emmett Environmental Law & Policy Clinic.

With this fellowship, she hopes to continue working on the paper that she began in the Legal Profession seminar by conducting interviews and surveys of Harvard Law School’s Native American graduates. Preliminary findings showed that these students were highly service-oriented. More than three-quarters of students dedicated their work to increasing tribal sovereignty. They started and led tribal corporations, supported Indian economic development, taught American Indian law, fought for tribal interests in the Department of the Interior or the Department of Justice, became tribal judges and lawyers, or joined an Indian firm or non-profit. More often than not, they did a combination of these jobs over their lifetimes. Their lawyering and leadership has changed the face of Indian country. This study endeavors to ensure that Harvard Law School recognizes their achievements, as well.