Sarah Spinuzzi

Legal Director

sarah@coastkeeper.org

Sarah earned her Bachelor of Arts in Philosophy from Occidental College in 2012 and her Juris Doctorate from Loyola Law School in 2015. During law school, Sarah gained legal experience interning with the Palos Verdes Peninsula Land Conservancy and the Surfrider Foundation. She served as the President of the Environmental Law Society at Loyola.

Sarah became a staff attorney at Coastkeeper in 2016 and quickly became a pioneer in Clean Water Act enforcement. In 2020, Sarah was promoted to senior staff attorney. In 2022, Sarah represented Coastkeeper in a successful jury trial where the jury found the defendant liable for 12,541 violations of the Clean Water Act. She took a brief, year-long sabbatical from Coastkeeper to serve the people of the State of California as senior staff counsel at the Department of Toxic Substances Control. While at DTSC, she worked on cleaning up one of California’s most contaminated hazardous and radioactive waste sites – Santa Susana Field Laboratory. Sarah proudly returned as Orange County Coastkeeper’s legal director to further the organization’s mission.

Sarah is also an adjunct professor of law at Loyola Law School where she teaches Environmental Law and Clean Water Act Litigation.

Outside of the office, you can find Sarah racing monohull sailboats off our coast, munching on a churro at Disneyland, or hiking with her dog (our office security guard), Bruce.