Sarah Howard Jenkins, Charles C. Baum Distinguished Professor of Law at the University of Arkansas at Little Rock William H. Bowen School of Law, is a 2017 inductee into the University of Kentucky College of Law Hall of Fame. 

The University of Kentucky Law Alumni Association Hall of Fame was established to acknowledge graduates and former faculty of the college whose extraordinary professional success and contributions, profound positive influence on the College of Law, and high degree of character and integrity are recognized by their peers. Inclusion in the Hall of Fame is the highest honor bestowed by the University of Kentucky College of Law.

Jenkins reflected that the award belongs to her parents, Vivian and the late Honorable George Howard Jr.

The couple were “two young black kids from the Deep South who believed God and His promises, who stressed education as an essential ingredient for success and prosperity, who embraced the Constitution of these United States, and who insisted on the application of the rule of law for ethnic minorities,” she said.

As an academic-legal professional, Jenkins devotes her time and energy to challenging her students to develop a commitment to diligence and competence in the study and practice of the law. She is dedicated to ensuring parity among the diverse interests in commercial law through her scholarship and participation in social justice and public service initiatives.

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 1980s and 1990s. Jenkins’ involvement with the American Bar Association Task Force on suretyship, and one of her articles, were 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 community members would have been unrepresented in the reform processes.

She has also been instrumental in Bowen’s involvement in the University of Silesia’s School of U.S. Law, a partnership with several U.S. law schools and the law school at the University of Silesia in Katowice, Poland.

Jenkins is a member of the prestigious American Law Institute and has served as chair of the Association of American Law Schools Section on Commercial and Related Consumer Law. She has published extensively on commercial law issues, notably volume 13 of the revised “Corbin on Contracts,” one of the leading and most highly regarded summaries of contract law in print.

Jenkins was the recipient of UA Little Rock William H. Bowen School of Law Faculty Excellence Award for Research, 2003 and 2011; the Delta Theta Phi Legal Fraternity UA Little Rock William H. Bowen School of Law Professor of the Year Award, 2000; and the University of Memphis Cecil C. Humphreys School of Law Student Bar Association Professor of the Year Award, 1989-90.