Sarah Horne ’22 is set up for success in the next chapter of her legal career with a perfect LSAT score and years of paralegal experience under her belt (Photo by Natalie Fedor).
Legal studies alumna Sarah Horne ’22 achieved an extremely rare feat when she took the Law School Admission Test (LSAT) over the summer and earned a perfect score of 180 — something less than 0.1% of test-takers accomplish, according to the Law School Admission Council (LSAC).
Horne's impressive score, in part, came from her even more impressive self-discipline and creative approach to studying. Her primary approach to studying included taking practice exams while purposefully placing herself in unideal or distracting test conditions. She also credits classes she took through UCF’s Department of Legal Studies, such as Legal Research, which taught her to think critically and analyze readings.
“Every weekend, I would take a prep test in suboptimal environments — like when I had a migraine, or while I was hanging out with my friends and halfway in a conversation," she says. "I told myself that if I could get a score I was okay with in those conditions, then I didn't need to stress about the LSAT. That really helped, because the testing center was peaceful compared to that.”
Thanks to her hard work, she is now ready to apply for law school admission for Fall 2026. It’s an experience she initially decided to put on pause after graduating from UCF.
“I decided not to take the test immediately to focus on my career and also my health,” Horne says. “I have a disability, and I'm semi-recently in a wheelchair. It's been a few years and I'm now at a point where I'm comfortable with that and with myself as a person with a disability. Now, I'm excited to take on law school.”
Her recent achievement is also a testament to her work ethic, as Horne accomplished all of this while working full-time as a paralegal at The Gray Law Firm, LLC, a personal injury firm in Orlando. She secured the role after completing her internship at the firm.
“The attorney I was working for invited me to stay on full-time, so I have been doing that since graduating,” she says. “I was excited to get to stay in Orlando because I love it here, and I really love working with that attorney and for the firm.”
On a day-to-day basis, Horne assists with legal research, drafting responses, gathering records and helping to talk through cases with clients.
Although personal injury law isn’t her long-term goal, Horne says she values the human side of the work she does.
“The most fulfilling thing is when a client comes to us in distress, and they don’t know what to do, and I am able to actually help them,” Horne says. “That’s also not just legally. I can also help them figure out if they can go to a doctor, how they are going to afford it and if they need to arrange childcare. I like being able to solve people’s problems.”
Helping people, and especially children, is something Horne foresees doing long term, potentially as a Guardian ad Litem — an attorney appointed to represent the best interests of a child involved in a legal proceeding, such as a custody dispute.
“I would like to advocate for children who are involved in foster care,” she says. “I feel like that's an area where we really need people who have the children's best interests at heart, and we need to take a child-centered approach to the decisions we make there. I want to be an advocate for them.”