Meet Sarah

Sarah Spruill focuses on business and commercial matters and complex litigation, including shareholder disputes and municipal litigation. Sarah represents financial institutions, utilities, manufacturers, individuals and governmental entities. She has devoted much of her practice to the defense of corporate officers and directors in connection with litigation and government investigations. She has represented corporations in various types of litigation, including securities claims, dissenters’ rights actions and commercial disputes. Sarah also has extensive experience in land use and condemnation matters.

She especially enjoys appellate practice and has handled a broad array of appeals, ranging from real property and estate disputes to banking, utilities, construction, governmental litigation, personal injury and product liability actions in addition to matters stemming from contract and business litigation.

Before joining Haynsworth Sinkler Boyd, Sarah spent two years as a law clerk to the Hon. Kaye G. Hearn, then chief judge for the South Carolina Court of Appeals. She likens that experience to having “an extra two years of law school with a very small class and an excellent professor.”

EXPERIENCE

• •  Represented a county through trial and appeal of a challenge to impact fee for new school construction, resulting in opinion upholding the impact fee
• •  Assisted a utility in the acquisition of access and easement rights for two natural gas pipelines through negotiation and litigation in state and federal courts
• •  Prevented class certification at trial level and on appeal in an action alleging widespread property damage as a result of blasting activity

• University of South Carolina, J.D., magna cum laude, 2000
• University of South Carolina Honors College, B.A., magna cum laude, 1997

• South Carolina, 2000
• U.S. Court of Appeals, Fourth Circuit, 2004
• U.S. District Court, South Carolina, 2002

• The Best Lawyers in America© Appellate Practice (2025) and Commercial Litigation (2019-2025)
• South Carolina Super Lawyers® “Rising Stars” Appellate (2013-2015)
• Greenville Business Magazine "Legal Elite of the Upstate" Appellate (2022-2024) and Energy and Utilities Law (2021-2023)
• Order of the Coif
• Order of the Wig and Robe
• South Carolina Law Review

• South Carolina Governor’s School for Science & Mathematics Foundation Board Member (2021-Present)
• South Carolina Bar, Commission for Lawyer Conduct (2021-Present), House of Delegates (2022-2024)
• ​Centre Stage South Carolina, Board of Directors (2015-2017)
• South Carolina Governor’s School for Science & Mathematics Alumni Association, Founding Member, Board Member (2007-2010, 2013-2016), President (2007-2008)
• Greenville County Bar Association
• Leadership Columbia, Class of 2010
• Leadership Greenville, Class 39

• “Don’t Let Your Electronic Filings Become a Bonanza for Cyber-Outlaws: Redaction Requirements Every Paralegal Should Know,” South Carolina Upstate Paralegal Association Annual Seminar, October 18, 2024
• “Preserving the Appeal: Keeping the Record in Mind,”  SC Defense Trial Attorneys Association Summer Conference, Asheville, NC, July 20, 2024
• “Strategies for Handling Vexatious FOIA Requests and Hostile Government Meetings” (Panelist), South Carolina Bar Convention, Charleston, SC, January 19, 2024
• “Quick Takes on Quick Takes,” International Right of Way Association ITC Symposium, Hilton Head Island, SC, March 31, 2023
• “Road Maintenance Fees – Litigation and Legislation,” 2023 South Carolina Bar Convention, Columbia, SC, January 20, 2023
• “Amalgamation Does Not Include Individuals,” HSB Blog, December 16, 2021
• "S.C. Appellate Practice and the Coronavirus Emergency,” HSB Blog, March 25, 2020
• “A Primer on Gas and Electric Eminent Domain Rights & Condemnation Procedures,” Client CLE Seminar, Charlotte, NC, February 25, 2020
• “Federal Condemnation Practice” and “Evaluating the Strengths and Weaknesses of a Condemnation Case; Landowner Perspective vs. Condemnor Perspective,” (Panelist), The Law and Litigation of Eminent Domain Cases in South Carolina CLE, Columbia, SC, February 18, 2020
• "Keeping the Walls Up: Tips for Avoiding Amalgamation," HSB 2018 Corporate Law for Accountants Seminar Series
• “Local Government Litigation Update – Impact Fee Litigation, Opioid Litigation (State and Federal) and FOIA," South Carolina Association of County Attorneys Annual Meeting, Hilton Head Island, SC, August 5, 2018
• “Enacting Fees by Local Governments,” Greene, Finney & Horton and Haynsworth Sinkler Boyd Financial and Legal Update Conference, April 26, 2017