AYLA PRESIDENT’S COLUMN

SARAH HARP, OFFICE OF THE ATTORNEY GENERAL

Meet AYLA’s 2023-24 President: Sarah Harp

Sarah Harp is an assistant attorney general with the Office of the Attorney General of Texas (OAG). She works in the Criminal Appeals Division and was formerly a law clerk with the agency. She obtained her J.D. from the University of Tulsa College of Law and received her undergraduate degree from the University of Oklahoma. Prior to moving to Texas, she worked in the Tulsa County Public Defender’s Office as a licensed legal intern and worked in the same role at the Lobeck Taylor Family Advocacy Clinic.

AYLA: Tell us about yourself.

HARP: First and foremost, I am an emotional support human to a poodle mix named Savage. He was a rescue that a friend found on Facebook, so I’m a proponent of “adopt, don’t shop.”

I also love traveling. I used my first OAG paycheck to fly to Chiang Mai, Thailand, and volunteered with the elephant sanctuary there. I also spent the summer before my third year of law school teaching English in a oneroom schoolhouse to elementary students in rural Costa Rica, and last year I took a course on the psychology of criminal behavior at the University of Oxford in the UK. I could talk about travelling all day, but I don’t want everyone to fall asleep.

AYLA: Tell us about your responsibilities as an assistant attorney general.

HARP: I predominately respond to federal habeas corpus petitions. I’ve also had the privilege of responding to state habeas corpus applications in district courts and filing appellees’ briefs in state appellate courts, and I’ve filed briefs in the Fifth Circuit and a brief in opposition to the granting of a writ of certiorari in the U.S. Supreme Court.

AYLA: Why did you first get involved with AYLA?

HARP: When I moved to Austin a few days after graduating from law school, I didn’t know anyone, and I didn’t have a job. I went to my first AYLA Docket Call before I had even passed the bar, and since then it has been a lifeline for me. I’ve met most of my friends through AYLA, and it’s an easy way to get involved with the community. It is the most non-judgmental and welcoming organization I have ever been part of, and I am incredibly grateful to everyone who attends, sponsors, and plans our events, especially our executive director, Debbie Kelly. Without AYLA I would just be a rapidly aging dog lady who watches Real Housewives after work every day.

AYLA: Tell us some of your goals and/or plans for the upcoming year with AYLA.

HARP: AYLA runs like a welloiled machine, so we will continue to do Docket Calls, have health and wellness activities, fundraise for our holiday program with the YMCA, throw crawfish boils, and have volunteer opportunities for our members, just to name a few.

Every year we add more events, like the Trial Institute that [immediate past president] Blair Leake worked tirelessly on, so I would like to continue that legacy and put together an event that will benefit the entire community. We are currently writing grant proposals, so I don’t want to give away too much.

I would also like to increase the number of government attorneys we have as members. AYLA is an organization that doesn’t label people, and we stay out of the political arena, so there’s no downside to joining and meeting a bunch of awesome people.

AYLA: What would you say to young lawyers to show them the benefit of joining AYLA?

HARP: It doesn’t matter if you’re new to Austin or if you were born here. It doesn’t matter if you went to Harvard or wherever Saul Goodman got his degree. It doesn’t even matter if you’re 70 years old. AYLA has something for everyone, and if you can’t find an event that matches your interest, let me know, and we will create a committee for you that matches whatever it is you’re passionate about. I’ve never met anyone who didn’t want to make friends and feel like they belong somewhere, and that’s exactly what AYLA provides: a loving community of attorneys who want to use their good fortune to lift others up.

“AYLA is an organization that doesn’t label people, and we stay out of the political arena, so there’s no downside to joining and meeting a bunch of awesome people.”