About Amelia
Amelia Sargent trained first in the humanities and then in the law. She earned an M.A. in Mediaeval Studies from the University of Toronto in 2002 and a Ph.D. in Comparative Literature from the University of California, Berkeley in 2003. She later took up legal study at Stanford Law School, completing a J.D. in 2011. The sequence of degrees traces a path from textual scholarship to legal practice.
She began her legal career in 2011 at Munger, Tolles & Olson, LLP. There she worked as an associate on matters that required federal litigation and appellate knowledge. In 2017 she joined Willenken LLP as a partner. In 2019 she added an academic role, serving as an adjunct professor of Art Law at the University of California, Hastings College of the Law.
Sargent is admitted in multiple jurisdictions. Her registrations include the District of Columbia and California bars, the Ninth and Fourth Circuits, and appearances in the United States Supreme Court. She is also admitted in the United States District Courts for the Northern, Eastern, Central and Southern Districts of California. Those credentials allow her to operate at trial and on appeal in both federal and state settings.
Her background in comparative literature and medieval studies informs how she approaches complex documents and historical evidence. That scholarly training has influenced her teaching and her written work in the courtroom. As an adjunct in 2019 she taught Art Law, bringing a humanities perspective to questions that touch on cultural property and provenance, licensing, and related disputes.
At Willenken LLP Sargent handles matters that arise in federal courts and on appeal. Her work combines litigation strategy, close textual analysis, and an interest in issues that intersect with cultural and artistic practice. Colleagues describe her as methodical in briefing and attentive to evidentiary detail.
Outside of firm work she maintains memberships in professional bars and has continued to take on academic projects. She is based at Willenken LLP and practices in areas connected to art law and federal litigation.
