Justice Sabrina McKenna

About this Speaker

    Sabrina Shizue McKenna has been serving as an Associate Justice of the Hawaiʻi Supreme Court since 2011. She graduated from the University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa (UHM) and its William S. Richardson School of Law (WSRSL), then worked as an associate at Goodsill Anderson Quinn & Stifel, Corporate Secretary and General Counsel to Otaka, Inc. (a Japan-based international business organization), an Instructor in Business Law at UHM’s Shidler College of Business, and an Assistant Professor at the WSRSL. She became a state trial court judge in 1993, presiding over criminal, domestic violence, and civil cases, then served as Senior Judge of the Family Court on Oʻahu until her appointment to the Supreme Court in 2011.  

           Justice McKenna is a Judicial Advisory Board member of the George Mason University Antonin Scalia Law School's Law & Economics Center Judicial Education Program and lectures throughout the world on various topics. Her honors include the American Bar Association Stonewall Award, the National Asian Pacific Bar Association Daniel K. Inouye Trailblazer Award, designation as an Association of Corporate Counsel Foundation Global Women in Law & Leadership Honoree, designation by the Jindal Global Law School (Delhi) as an Eminent Jurist and Honorary Adjunct Faculty Member, the Hawaii Women Lawyers Outstanding Judicial Achievement Award, and the University of Hawaiʻi Distinguished Alumnus Award.