Sarah Schielke (pronounced “shell-key”) was born and raised in Rochester, New York. She attended Middlebury College in Vermont where she received a B.A. in Psychology and graduated magna cum laude. Sarah then went on to law school at the Boston University School of Law on a full academic merit scholarship. There, she was the Managing Editor of the Boston University Law Review. After law school, Sarah packed up her bags, rounded up her dogs, and moved out to Colorado where she opened her own criminal defense and civil rights law practice. In 2023, Sarah was named one of USA Today’s Women of the Year, an award recognizing “strong and resilient women who have been champions of change across the country,” for her work in the civil rights field. This work includes Sarah obtaining a record-breaking $3,000,000 settlement in the internationally publicized case of Karen Garner v. City of Loveland in 2021, and then just a year later, obtaining yet another record-breaking $7,000,000 settlement in the police tasing case of Michael Clark v. Idaho Springs. Sarah also received DUIDLA’s “Badass Award” in 2021 – the organization’s highest honor – for her work on two United States Supreme Court case amicus briefs and for her impact in the civil rights and DUI defense fields. Sarah has been repeatedly named a Rising Stars SuperLawyer for DUI Defense (2018-present). She regularly lectures and presents all over the country to other lawyers regarding civil rights litigation and DUI defense strategy. Her material on Winning Marijuana DUIs has been published in the Texas DWI Manual. She serves on the Executive Committee for the national DUI Defense Lawyers Association (DUIDLA) and in 2023 Sarah was elected DUIDLA’s President.
Sarah is married with three kids, five dogs, and a spectacularly popular cat named Rick. When she’s not holding the government accountable, you will find Sarah at live music, rooting for/crying about the Buffalo Bills, unapologetically quoting Tim Robinson (ITYSL) sketches and the 1999 Australian movie The Castle, and coaching her daughters’ soccer team.
What is your typical day, and how do you make it productive?
I wake up early (between 5-6 am), turn off my alarm, and play the day’s Wordle. I try to stretch for 5 minutes or so and do quick strength exercises (squats, planks) for another 5 minutes. Then, I make my coffee for the day (Nespresso) and go out the door with Michelle Kwan (my bulldog), who is headed to the office. My favorite time to work is from 630-830 am before my staff gets in, and most of the world has gotten going. It is quiet, and my brain is ready to get hooked back into the thrum of doing stuff and making things happen. I make a quick list of things that must get done that day, and a list of things that must get done in the next few days, and then a list of more manageable quick tasks I can do any time to move along the other projects or side quests I have happening. This list is helpful for when I have done a lot of mental heavy lifting on a particular day and need a break but still want to feel productive. When you have three young kids and work = not being with them, you learn your personal maximum productivity methods pretty darn quick!
On this point, I have to mention that the real secret to my productivity is my husband, Dirk, who is a stay-at-home dad to our 3 kids. He holds down the whole operation and makes all of what I do possible. He is a hero and a machine!
In terms of things that I do to be productive, the most effective method for me is turning off email. Obviously, every day has to include a chunk of hours dedicated to reading and writing emails, but leaving email notifications on all day is a recipe for productivity disaster. It disrupts my ability to focus on the deeper thinking work. Without any boundaries enforced on it, I’ll spend the whole day on emails, and then, in the end, I feel drained and like I somehow still accomplished close to nothing. So that’s the primary and most important piece of structure that my work life has.
No day is the same in my work life, on some days I have court hearings, on others I have depositions, and once every other month or so I have a jury trial. Those are the most fun! Not just for me, either. My mom (who considers herself a “Sarah Schielke Season Ticket Holder”) and friends (both attorney- and non-) often come to watch for good reason. Jury trials are where our justice system comes alive, and I do too. I live to tell stories, and each time I’m in a courtroom entrusted with the privilege of telling my client’s story, it’s the most important one I’ll ever tell.
After the work day is through, I put all of work on ice and head home to my husband and kids (daughter Cojack age 7, daughter Cricket age 6, and son Seller age 4 months) in Fort Collins. I coach my daughters’ soccer team in Spring and Fall and so first thing I’m usually doing in the door is grabbing the girls and a soccer ball to go to the field next to our house to practice and play. Then it’s into the house for dinner, getting some baby time in with Seller, and in summer, there’s nothing better than evening fishing in the lake with the whole family while the dogs take a dip. To bed by 10 pm, with I Think You Should Leave, Arrested Development, What We Do In The Shadows, The Castle, or The Other Guys on the TV (sound only, screen off). There are a lot of snorers in my house who need to be drowned out. One of them, an English Mastiff named DotCom, snores so loud it literally rattles the walls. I’m seriously starting to think this dog needs a CPAP.
How do you bring ideas to life?
I have the idea. I assess who and what is needed to execute it. Then, I make things happen! I believe I have the power and will to change the world around me in big and small ways. Every project or idea is comprised of smaller tasks. I figure out what they are and who I know might be able to help me or assist. Then we get it done!
What’s one trend that excites you?
Bodyworn camera mandates for police! Anything that increases government transparency is exciting to me. Broader accessibility through changes to open records laws is another one. Nothing is more abhorrent to me than the people with power having all the control over when/whether others check how they’re using that power. We are a modern society with advanced computers and mobile, wearable cameras. We don’t let bank tellers decide when the cameras are on or off while they’re working, so why – when the commodity at risk is something far more precious than money (our civil liberties) – would we let cops? We’re headed in the right direction on this, but sadly, there is still so much to go.
What is one habit that helps you be productive?
I love my work. I’m excited to do all of it. That sure helps.
Turning off email for a set period of each day is also essential for my productivity.
What advice would you give your younger self?
Find the kids who love to create and are already passionate about something. Connect your life to theirs. They may seem weird or uncool now, but they all have grown up to be the best adults to know and have as your friends.
Tell us something you believe almost nobody agrees with you on?
That the Buffalo Bills are going to win a Super Bowl, they are! Very soon. You watch. It’s going to be glorious.
What is the one thing you repeatedly do and recommend everyone else do?
Make time, literally schedule and plan it, to see friends and family and do something fun together throughout the year. With kids and jobs, it is hard to follow through on those “we need to hang out soon!” comments that we all have become accustomed to saying to one another. If you leave it to chance or last minute, it rarely happens. I reject that. I reject the idea of seeing people I love only rarely. Not on my watch! I get trips and visits on the books. Whether meeting up to go to a concert festival or spend a week on the beach – I do the coordinating, I get the event on everyone’s calendars, I bully the fear-of-commitment ones into committing, and then, as a result, at least a few times a year, we all get to have an amazing time doing amazing stuff we love with people we love.
The older we get, the busier we get, and the harder it is to have these shared experiences with friends and family. Someone has to take the initiative and be the planner. Take the initiative. Be the planner!
When you feel overwhelmed or unfocused, what do you do?
Take a day off from work and spend it with my family. No other option! If I am genuinely becoming overwhelmed and unfocused, my life has reached a peak point of work/life imbalance, so a minimum of one full day time-with-family-and-friends reset day is the only way to correct this. You cannot grind through to a magically restored balance and focus on the other side by working more. Trust me, I’ve tried!
What is one strategy that has helped you grow your business or advance in your career?
I take nothing personally. Working in the law means working against the backdrop of constant conflict. Your “work colleagues” are opposing counsel whose job, generally, is to stop you from being successful. This is already a high-difficulty work setting. Want to know how you can triple that difficulty instantly? By taking things personally!
A dispute or disagreement only becomes “personal” if you let it. A ” personal ” conflict guarantees extra drain on both time and energy. Everything is more fun, and there are way more solutions when you don’t let it become personal. I approach every encounter with a sparkle in my eye and joyous rascality in my heart. Life is short. I’m here to party. You can’t sour my energy without my consent. My vibe has Teflon.
What is one failure in your career, how did you overcome it, and what lessons did you take away from it?
Early on in my career, I lost several trials in a row. Each one felt like a failure. There is a particular type of inner grief and blaming that goes with losing a trial because the task of a jury trial is preparation- and performance-based. You can’t help but wonder if you could have changed the outcome by doing something different. The disappointment of losing at something important after trying so hard used to WRECK me, sometimes for weeks. About two years in, I lost a trial I never thought I should have. It was my first trial since my dad had passed away from cancer and the third one I had lost in a row. I cried the whole drive home (as was usual then), but this time, instead of marching right to the fridge to grab a bottle of wine, I got a pad of paper and a pen, sat down at the table, and wrote down everything I thought I could have done a little better or a little bit differently. I wrote everything I could think of across about 12 handwritten pages. Then I went to bed. In the morning, I returned to it with fresh eyes and a brain that – for once – hadn’t been cycling on it all night. When I did, I saw two things: (1) Most of the stuff I had listed wouldn’t have changed the outcome in a million years; it turns out it’s just tough to realize that when it’s a thought in your mind. Written on paper with some distance from it, though, you get a better perspective. (2) A handful of the ideas in there were things I could have done better or differently. It was easy to see which ones, too. They almost always revolved around not protesting too much and keeping things more straightforward. I highlighted those ideas, and I made sure to re-read them before my subsequent trial. I went on to win my following 14 jury trials in a row.
That’s the funny thing about failure. We don’t get to choose whether or not we fail (it’s part of life), but we all get to make a critical choice about how we react to the suffering that goes with it. You can run from it (blame others, blame yourself, try to deny or numb the fact of experiencing it), or you can surrender to it. You can still have your cry, but you bring a pen and pad of paper so that after, you can step back, take a look, and see what you’ve learned.
It doesn’t matter how committed you are to learning, how many books you read, or how much advice you receive – it all pales compared to what you can get out of failure. If you have the right mindset about failure and suffering, then you’ll be able to experience the precious gift of explosive growth. It is not a bad consolation prize. I don’t lose trials often nowadays, but when I do, you can bet I will be ready with a pad and paper.
What is one business idea you’re willing to give away to our readers?
If you’re vaguely competent, willing to try hard, and not afraid to ask for help, you will instantly offer a better product than 90% of the competition in any service profession.
What is one piece of software that helps you be productive? How do you use it?
We started using Slack in my law office last year to keep ideas, to-do lists, research, thoughts, and action items all in one place in clients’ cases. It has helped me personally to have a place to deposit all my thoughts and plans and “if this, then do that” strategies at the top of a matter while I’m deep-dived and immersed in working on it so that I can leave it for a while and be able to come back and not have to redo all that thought work. It’s also great for interoffice messaging, dropping files, sending quick tasks to one another, etc. Keeping track of all the plans and ideas I have for a case I develop every time I’m immersed in it has been one of the most challenging aspects of my work. My thoroughness already consumes so much of my time; having to be that thorough twice just because I couldn’t find a way to record the thought output was a tragedy. This has improved things a ton.
Do you have a favorite book or podcast you’ve gotten a ton of value from and why?
Every Monday morning, the Smartless podcast brings me joy and laughter. The Ten Percent Happier podcast helps me continue to grow as a person.
What’s a movie or series you recently enjoyed and why?
The 1999 Australian movie “The Castle” is the best movie ever. It’s gone “straight to the pool room” of my heart. The plot centers around issues of the law and justice. Still, the thematic core of this film is how it reveals the simplicity of happiness and how anyone can have it because it emanates entirely from love for one another and family. It is utterly wholesome, it is beyond hilarious, and it is just a masterpiece. And because I cannot stop myself from continuing to quote from it: It’s law, it’s justice, it’s the vibe, and ah… no, that’s it. It’s the vibe. I rest my case.
Key learnings
- Whatever life you had planned is not as good as the life you have waiting for you. Be a warrior. Whatever tomorrow brings, say “hell yes” and “LFG” to it all.
- Surprise yourself and surprise others by consistently participating in the world with joy. No matter how conflict surrounds your job or what kind of crisis arises, you can still engage with it and get through it with joy.
- If you live reactively, your life will not feel like an adventure, and your work will feel even worse. If you live with joy, self-awareness, and a nonreactive purpose, you will blow your dang mind with how much you can accomplish and with how many good friends you make along the way.