Sarah Winsberg

Biography

Sarah Winsberg's research in legal history examines the process of making legal categories. Looking beyond the courtroom and the best remembered legal thinkers, she shows how long-forgotten writers' and editors' work in labeling and annotating cases produced gradual, yet ultimately profound, change in the law. Professor Winsberg’s research reveals these lost transformations, using history to offer deep insight into the theory of private law. Her research explores the roots of modern economic conundrums from the gig economy to the rise of subcontracting as corporate structure, and beyond.

Professor Winsberg’s scholarship has appeared in the Notre Dame Law Review and in Legal Ethics, where her article received the Deborah Rhode Early Career Scholar Paper Prize. She earned her B.A. in history from Yale University magna cum laude and her J.D. from the University of Pennsylvania Law School summa cum laude with graduation prizes in employment law, legal ethics, and criminal law. Professor Winsberg also holds a Ph.D. in American Legal History from the University of Pennsylvania. In 2018-19, she clerked for Judge Anthony Scirica on the United States Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit. Earlier, she worked as a paralegal in civil legal aid at Legal Assistance of Western New York. Her research has been supported by the New York Public Library, the Program in Early American Economy and Society at the Library Company of Pennsylvania, and the University of Pennsylvania.