A member of the Hawaii Supreme Court is being recognized for her professional excellence by a national legal organization.
Associate Justice Sabrina McKenna has been selected to receive the 2023 Margaret Brent Women Lawyers of Achievement Award.
The award, named for the first female lawyer in the United States, honors outstanding female lawyers “who have achieved professional excellence in their area of specialty and have actively paved the way to success for others,” according to a press release Monday from the American Bar Association Commission on Women in the Profession.
Previous recipients include former U.S. Supreme Court Associate Justices Sandra Day O’Connor and the late Ruth Bader Ginsburg.
McKenna was appointed to Hawaii’s high court in 2011. She has served as chair of the court’s Committee on Equality and Access to the Courts and the Committee on Court Interpreters and Language Access. McKenna holds a law degree from the University of Hawaii Manoa William S. Richardson School of Law.
According to the ABA, Margaret Brent arrived in the American colonies in 1638 and is remembered today as “a master negotiator, an accomplished litigator, and a respected leader.” Harper’s magazine once recognized Brent as “the first woman in America to stand for the rights of her sex.”
McKenna and four other recipients will be recognized at an award ceremony and reception in Denver, Colorado, in August.
Source: Civil Beat
