About Sarah Irene
Sarah Irene Plastino built her legal foundation at Georgetown University Law Center, where she earned a J.D. in 2012 and a Certificate in Refugee & Humanitarian Emergencies. She completed her undergraduate studies at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, receiving a B.A. in International Studies and Public Policy Analysis in 2007. Those academic choices set the course for a career centered on immigration and humanitarian work.
Early in her career she joined the National Immigrant Justice Center in 2012, working in the LGBT Immigrant Rights Initiative. The next year she moved to a supervisory role at Kids in Need of Defense, overseeing pro bono programs that connected private attorneys with child clients. In 2016 she worked as an immigration attorney with the New York Immigrant Family Unity Project at Brooklyn Defender Services, representing detained immigrants in bond and removal matters. She later served as a senior lawyer at the Rocky Mountain Immigrant Advocacy Network, where she handled complex immigration cases and contributed to systemic advocacy.
Plastino has also worked in academia and public service. In 2019 she taught as an adjunct professor at the University of Denver Sturm College of Law, bringing practical immigration experience into the classroom. In 2022 she accepted a Governor’s Fellowship at CiviCO, a role that involved policy work and civic engagement. Since 2021 she has led Sarah Plastino Consulting LLC, a solo consulting practice that provides legal, training, and policy services on immigration matters.
Her organizational involvement is sustained and broad. She sits on the board of the Colorado Immigrant Rights Coalition and holds memberships in the National Immigration Project of the National Lawyers Guild, the New York City Bar Association’s Immigration & Nationality Committee, and the American Immigration Lawyers Association. Those roles reflect years spent both in direct client representation and in coalition-building.
Colleagues describe Plastino as methodical in client advocacy and deliberate in policy discussions. Her work has spanned individual representation, program management, training, and public-facing policy roles. She has moved between nonprofit legal services and consulting, carrying practical courtroom experience into strategy and training work.
She is licensed to practice in New York and currently operates Sarah Plastino Consulting LLC. Her current practice at Sarah Plastino Consulting LLC handles immigrant rights, asylum claims, and policy work.
