Putnam, Brian W.

Sara Gapasin is the newest addition to Augustin Egelsee LLP. She recently joined the team after clerking with the firm for a year. Sara's passion has always been working in special education. Upon graduating from the University of California, Irvine with a Bachelor of Arts in English, Sara went on to work as a Behavioral Interventionist for students with Autism. It was at this time that she realized she wanted to advocate for these children she so desperately cared for as well as other marginalized populations. She applied to law school and began working at the Public Law Center in Santa Ana helping to offer pro bono legal services to low-income persons residing in Orange County.

She then went on to attend Chapman University School of Law where she continued her passion for special education law. She clerked for the Learning Rights Law Center in Los Angeles where she was given the position of "Education Liaison" on the 241.1 Multidisciplinary Team at Edmund D. Edelman Children's Court in Monterey Park. The 241.1 Team was charged with the duty of making recommendations to the bench on services that dependent children might need that ended up in the delinquency system. Sara was responsible for making recommendations as to whether each dependent youth needed special education services. During her tenure at Chapman, Sara also was an officer for the Public Interest Law Foundation, National Lawyers Guild and International Law Society. She worked on several research projects for professors and wrote for the alumni newsletter. She received the CALI Academic Achievement Award for her clinic class in which she worked on obtaining U-VISAs for victims of domestic violence. For her work at Chapman she was awarded for the National Association of Women Lawyers Award, awarded to one outstanding female student each year. Upon graduating Chapman, Sara and her husband welcomed their first baby into the world, nine days before Sara was scheduled to take the bar. She took the bar regardless and passed. Since then, She has enjoyed being an attorney and mom.