Sara Sternberg Greene

Sara Greene’s areas of expertise include consumer bankruptcy and debt, poverty law, housing law, tax, contracts, access to justice, and qualitative research methods. Greene’s research uses interdisciplinary methods to better understand the relationship between law and inequality. Her work has been published or is forthcoming in the New York University Law Review, the Duke Law Journal, the Minnesota Law Review, and the American Bankruptcy Law Journal, among others. Greene, along with others, integrated her research on the Earned Income Tax Credit into a federal policy proposal, “The Rainy Day EITC: A Reform to Boost Financial Security by Helping Low Wage Workers Build Emergency Savings.” Senators Cory Booker (D-NJ) and Jerry Moran (R-KS) adopted the proposal and are co-sponsors of a bipartisan bill proposing the “Refund to Rainy Day Savings Act.”

Greene received her B.A. in 2002 from Yale University, magna cum laude and with distinction. She received her J.D. in 2005 from Yale Law School, where she received the Stephen J. Massey Prize for excellence in advocacy and served as notes editor for the Yale Law Journal and articles editor for the Yale Law and Policy Review. She also served as chair of the student board of directors for the Jerome N. Frank Legal Services Organization and as student director in the Housing and Community Development Clinic. After clerking for Judge Richard Cudahy on the United States Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit, Greene focused on housing law and tax credit matters at the law firm Klein Hornig in Boston before beginning a Ph.D. program. She received her Ph.D. in social policy and sociology from Harvard University in 2014.