2017 Hall of Fame Inductee Sarah Howard Jenkins Class of 1982

Sarah Howard Jenkins is the Charles C. Baum Distinguished Professor of Law at the University of Arkansas at Little Rock William H. Bowen School of Law. As an academic-legal professional, Prof. Jenkins has devoted her time and energy to challenging her students to develop a commitment to diligence and competence in the study and practice of the law. Through her scholarship and participation in the quasi-legislative legal reform processes of the American Bar Association (ABA), she sought to ensure parity among the diverse interests in commercial law. Her work has already made a difference for people who otherwise would not have been represented in the reform of commercial law in the late 1980’s and 1990’s. Prof. Jenkins’ involvement with an ABA Task Force on Suretyship, and one of her articles, was motivated in part by the large number of elderly women in predominantly African American churches who generously guaranteed the debts of family and congregational members. Without her involvement, these members of our community would have been unrepresented in the reform processes.

Prof. Jenkins is a member of the prestigious American Law Institute and she has served as chair of the ABA UCC Subcommittee on Article 1, during the revision of UCC Article 1, and the Subcommittee on Payment Systems, 2007 through 2010. Twice, she has served as chair of the Association of American Law Schools (AALS) Section on Commercial and Related Consumer Law and as member of the AALS Standing Committee on Recruitment and Retention of Minority Faculty and Students. She has published extensively on Commercial Law issues, organized several symposia of distinguished domestic scholars, and is the author of Volume 13 of the Revised Corbin on Contracts.

Finally, and perhaps most importantly, she is the daughter of Vivian and, the late, Honorable George Howard, Jr., the mother of Elizabeth Courtney Jenkins, and, as a follower of Jesus Christ, she espouses a biblical worldview.