Sarah Campbell is a founding member of Jay & Campbell, PLLC, and the firm’s lead trial attorney. Over more than a decade in Florida courtrooms, she has tried hundreds of child welfare cases — first as a Senior Attorney for Children’s Legal Services representing the Department of Children and Families, then defending the parents, and now representing caregivers, and children on the other side of those proceedings. Few Florida attorneys have litigated dependency, termination of parental rights, and contested adoption matters from both perspectives. Fewer still bring her composure to the work.

Sarah is the kind of trial lawyer opposing counsel notices early. She is unhurried, precise, and fluent in the procedural and evidentiary rules that govern complex child welfare litigation. She handles emotionally charged hearings with a steadiness that reassures clients and earns the trust of the bench. Her cross-examinations are economical; her direct examinations build narrative without drama. When the record matters on appeal — and in this firm’s practice, it almost always does — Sarah is the attorney who builds it.

Her practice areas include contested adoption (particularly involving children in state custody), dependency and termination of parental rights, paternity, Interstate Compact for the Placement of Children (ICPC) matters, and Hague Convention abduction cases. She is bilingual in Spanish and represents Spanish-speaking families throughout Florida.

Background and recognition. Sarah’s work in child welfare began in 2008, when she was selected as a Florida Bar Foundation Fellow for Florida’s Children First, a non-partisan organization advancing the rights of children in foster care. Before law school, she served as Director of Client Services at a women’s counseling center in Gainesville, where she counseled hundreds of women facing unplanned pregnancies. She is a certified volunteer child advocate for the Guardian ad Litem Program in the Nineteenth Judicial Circuit, and a Fellow of the Academy of Adoption & Assisted Reproduction Attorneys (AAAA) — a credential reserved for adoption attorneys vetted by their peers as among the most experienced in the field.

Writing and teaching. Sarah is a co-author of Adoption, Paternity, and Other Florida Family Practice. She has published on children’s rights in the Florida Bar Journal (“The Use of Next Friends to Seek Appointment of Counsel for Dependent Children”) and on parents’ rights in The Federalist. She is regularly invited to present to foster and adoptive parent groups on their rights and responsibilities under Florida law.

Education. J.D., St. Thomas University School of Law. B.A. in Political Science and Spanish, University of Florida.

Bar Admissions. Supreme Court of the United States; all Florida state courts; U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Florida.

Personal. Sarah lives in Martin County with her husband, their three children, and an assortment of pets.

For a list of the firm’s reported appellate decisions, click here.