Biography

Justice Sabrina Shizue McKenna co-teaches State Constitutional Law with Justice Todd Eddins. She has served on the Hawaiʻi Supreme Court since 2011 and served as its Acting Chief Justice from October 2025 to early May 2026. She has also served as a Justice Pro Tem for the Supreme Court of the Northern Mariana Islands. 

She is a graduate of Richardson and served as editor-in-chief of the law review. After law school graduation, she was a civil litigator, general counsel to a Japan-based international business organization, and a WSRSL assistant professor before her 1993 appointment as a Hawaiʻi state district court judge.  She was a circuit court judge from 1995 to 2011, presiding over civil, criminal, and family cases, and also served as Senior Judge of the First Circuit Family Court from 2009 until 2011.  She has headed or served on numerous court and law-related commissions and committees and has led various initiatives to improve access to justice.  She is also a frequent domestic and international lecturer on various topics.

Her honors include a honorary doctorate from the University of the Ryukyus (2024), the American Bar Association’s Margaret Brent Women Lawyers of Achievement Award (2023) and Stonewall Award (2021), the National Asian American Bar Association’s Daniel K. Inouye Trailblazer Award (2015), the Hawai#i Friends for Civil Rights Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., Friends Award (2011), the University of Hawaii Distinguished Alumnus Award (2009), the WSRSL Outstanding Alumnus Award (2008), and the Hawaii Women Lawyers Outstanding Judicial Achievement Award (2007).  She has also been recognized in Honolulu Magazine’s March 2023 “Inspiring Women Who Make Hawaiʻi a Better Place” issue, as an Eminent Jurist by the Jindal Global Law School (2020), and by the Association of Corporate Counsel Foundation as a Global Women in Law & Leadership Honoree (2017).  She is a proud mother of three adult children.

Publications

180+ published opinions of the Hawaiʻi Supreme Court

Hawaii Family & Succession Law, Japanese translation publication forthcoming in Koseki Jiho

“First Things First” But “Second Things Second”:  42 U.S.C. § 1983 and

The Problem With Primacy, publication forthcoming in 49 U.Hawaiʻi  L. Rev.

The Importance of State Constitutions:  Our Role in Preventing Malpractice and Getting to Justice, 64 ABA Judges’ Journal, 6 (Spring 2025)

Book chapter, Should Civil Jury Trials Be Conducted Through Zoom?, in M. Iemoto, U.Matsumaru, H. Takebe Eds., Citizen Participation the Judicial System on a Crossroads (Nihon Hyoronsha 2023)(Festschrift for Professor Takashi Maruta

Transgender Women in College Athletics:  The Next Era of Title IX, 45 U. Hawaiʻi L. Rev. 403 (Spring 2023)  

Dobbs and Abortion Rights in the U.S.:  What Happened and What Next?, 9 Gender and Law J. 215 (2022) (Japan )(Translated into Japanese by Professor Naoko Tateishi)

Book chapter, COVID-19 and Courts:  How “Remote” Should the Future Be?, in “Legal Education Profession During and After COVID-19” (Springer Publications 2022,             C. Raj Kumar & S.G. Sreejith, Eds.)

50 Years of Title IX, With Rose, Jennifer, Hawaiʻi Bar Journal, May 2022

LGBT Rights in the U.S. (in Japanese), Okinawa Gender Studies, Vol. 2, Legal, Societal and Biological Systems, 273, University of Ryukyus Press (2015)

LGBT Rights in the U.S., Gender and Law J. Ten Years of Gender Law Studies Special Edition  6 (2013) (Transcript of 12/9/12 Keynote Lecture at Gender & Law Society’s 10^th Annual Conference, Waseda University, Tokyo (in Japanese))

The Role of DV Courts in Hawaiʻi (in Japanese), Gender Studies in Okinawa Project, Fiscal Year 2012 (2012)

Gender Bias in the Courts: A Japan-U.S. Comparison (in Japanese), published in the Proceedings of the Workings Women’s International Network Symposium on 11/9/03 in Osaka, Japan

Proposal For Judicial Reform In Japan: An Overview, Asia Pacific Law & Policy Journal 122 (June 2001 Special Issue)

Perspectives on Public Safety: Crime and Justice, In The Official Proceedings of the 1995 International Symposium of Japan-America Societies 158 (Published by The Japan-America Society of Hawaii 1995)