Sarah Laybourne

SARAH is a judicial law clerk for the U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the District of Utah, where she routinely analyzes complex legal issues in both consumer and business bankruptcies. Prior to her current role, she served as term judicial law clerk to the Hon. William T. Thurman, then practiced as a staff attorney for the Office of the Chapter 13 Trustee in Salt Lake City, where she represented the trusteeship in court proceedings before the bankruptcy court, drafted and filed memoranda on a variety of law and motion matters daily, and conducted meetings of creditors.

Sarah is coordinating editor for the ABI Journal’s Clerk Commentary column and recently authored an article that was published in its Consumer Corner column. She is a member of the Bankruptcy Court’s Local Rules Committee. She also serves as trustee for the Utah Bankruptcy Lawyers Forum, is a member of the Women Lawyers of Utah’s Government Lawyers Committee, and is active in the Association of Bankruptcy Judicial Assistants, for which she serves as the Law Clerk liaison, Tenth Circuit representative and chair of the Chambers Webinar Committee. She is admitted to practice in Arizona and Utah and has been a frequent presenter at a number of conferences, including ABI’s 2025 Rocky Mountain Bankruptcy Conference, for which she moderated its judges’ panel.

Sarah’s interest in bankruptcy law was cemented after attending an ABI conference while still in law school, and she is passionate about providing more opportunities for law students to attend conferences and receive mentoring through programs such as ABI’s. She also is dedicated to guiding the upcoming generation of bankruptcy attorneys; at the bankruptcy court, she has personally supervised and mentored more than 30 law student interns and regularly trains term law clerks working in multiple chambers. In addition, she developed the Utah Bankruptcy Court’s Summer Internship Program, which has had more than 25 participants since 2021. She engages insolvency professionals in the community to contribute as guest speakers each summer, and plans an “introduction to the federal courts” panel featuring federal judges, a series of guest lectures featuring various bankruptcy professionals (professors, trustees, U.S. Trustee trial attorneys and judges), and a career path panel of former bankruptcy court clerks. Outside of the office, she has organized and recruited lawyers to participate in a 5k race that benefits And Justice for All, an organization that provides low- and no-cost legal services to the community.