The sorted() function takes a key= parameter
newlist = sorted(list_to_be_sorted, key=lambda d: d['name'])
Alternatively, you can use operator.itemgetter instead of defining the function yourself
from operator import itemgetter
newlist = sorted(list_to_be_sorted, key=itemgetter('name'))
For completeness, add reverse=True to sort in descending order
newlist = sorted(list_to_be_sorted, key=itemgetter('name'), reverse=True)