Vera Institute of Justice

Sarah Lustbader is a Senior Program Associate with the Reimagining Prison project. She joined Vera after working for five years as a criminal defense attorney at The Bronx Defenders. During her time as a public defender, Sarah served clients facing felony and misdemeanor charges and also took on policy issues. She completed an intensive course in Neuroscience at the University of Pennsylvania and applied that knowledge to her work in the criminal justice system. She also served as body-camera specialist, writing a white paper and advocating for those proposals externally. Sarah previously worked as an Antitrust Associate for the law firm Shearman & Sterling, LLP.

Sarah has testified before the New York State Assembly and has published op-ed pieces for the New York Times, The Washington Post, and The Week. She has also written articles about criminal justice that are forthcoming in Washington University Law Review (with Laurent Sacharoff) and Fordham Urban Law Journal. Before law school, Sarah taught English at The University of Cuenca in Ecuador and received a Stanford Public Interest Network fellowship to serve the homeless population of San Mateo County. She received a JD from NYU School of Law, where she served on the NYU Law Review as Notes Editor, and a BA in International Relations from Stanford University.