BIOGRAPHY

MJ Palau-McDonald joined the law school in 2024 as an Assistant Professor of Law. Her areas of scholarship and research include Native Hawaiian Law, critical/contextual inquiry, legal history, and restorative environmental justice for Indigenous Peoples. As a Kanaka ʻŌiwi (Native Hawaiian) who grew up in the Bay Area, she is also interested in diasporas, empires, and intergenerational legacies. Her published and forthcoming scholarship can be found in the Boston University Law Review and the Harvard Civil Rights-Civil Liberties Law Review, among others.

Prior to joining the faculty, Professor Palau-McDonald clerked for the Honorable Richard R. Clifton of the Ninth Circuit and the Honorable Susan Oki Mollway of the U.S. District of Hawaiʻi. She is a proud graduate of Richardson, where she served as the Editor-in-Chief of the University of Hawaiʻi Law Review and earned a certificate in Native Hawaiian Law from Ka Huli Ao Center for Excellence in Native Hawaiian Law.

SELECTED PUBLICATIONS

• Framing Restorative Environmental Justice, Boston University Law Review (forthcoming 2026).
• Farrington v. Tokushige: Language and Power in Hawaiʻi, 35 Western Legal History 15 (2025). SSRN
• The Duty to Aloha ʻĀina: Indigenous Values as a Legal Foundation for Hawaiʻi’s Public Trust Doctrine, 57 Harvard Civil Rights-Civil Liberties Law Review 525 (2022) (with D. Kapuaʻala Sproat). SSRN
• Comment, Blockchains and Self-Determination for the Native Hawaiian People: Toward Restorative Stewardship of Indigenous Lands, 57 Harvard Civil Rights-Civil Liberties Law Review 395 (2022). SSRN