Hawaiʻi Supreme Court Associate Justice Sabrina S. McKenna has been selected to receive the American Bar Association’s (ABA) 2027 Spirit of Excellence Award, recognizing her longstanding efforts to promote diversity, equal opportunity, and inclusion in the legal profession.

Presented by the ABA Commission on Racial and Ethnic Diversity in the Profession, the national award recognizes lawyers whose professional accomplishments and leadership have helped advance racial and ethnic diversity. Justice McKenna will be honored January 30, 2027, during the Titans for Change Gala at the ABA’s Midyear Meeting in Chicago, Illinois.

Throughout her distinguished legal career spanning more than four decades, Justice McKenna has worked to expand opportunities for individuals from historically underrepresented communities, promote equal access to the courts, and inspire future generations of legal professionals.

“As our court recognized in our March 5, 2025, statement, Affirming Principles of Equal Justice for All, the guiding principle of equality seeks to elevate all people by recognizing their common humanity and eliminating the barriers that keep them from fully participating in society.  In my opinion, diversity of representation in the legal profession is required for access to and actual achievement of justice. I have therefore sought to facilitate that diversity throughout my career,” she said.

Born in Tokyo, Japan, Justice McKenna grew up in a biracial, bilingual, and bicultural family. She graduated from the University of Hawaiʻi’s William S. Richardson School of Law in 1982.

After working in private practice, corporate law, and legal education, Justice McKenna was appointed to the Hawaiʻi District Court in 1993. She subsequently served as a Circuit Court judge and Senior Judge of the Family Court of the First Circuit before joining the Hawaiʻi Supreme Court in 2011. She served as Acting Chief Justice from October 2025 to May 2026.

Justice McKenna has been a leader in efforts to reduce barriers to participation in the judicial system. She chaired the Hawaiʻi Supreme Court’s Committee on Court Interpreters and Language Access and its Committee on Equality and Access to the Courts, helping advance policies and programs that improve court services for people from diverse cultural and linguistic backgrounds, including those with limited English proficiency. She currently serves on the Access to Justice Commission.

Her work has included overseeing implementation of Hawaiʻi’s court interpreter certification program and advocating for judiciary policies that have resulted in free language assistance for all court participants. She has also worked to strengthen protections against bias and discrimination within the Judiciary, including efforts to ensure that gender identity and gender expression are explicitly protected under Judiciary policies and judicial conduct rules.

Beyond her judicial responsibilities, Justice McKenna mentors law students and young attorneys, particularly those from historically underrepresented communities, and speaks in Hawaiʻi, across the United States, and internationally on topics including civil rights, women’s rights, LGBTQ+ issues, and diversity in the legal profession.

“I mentor future generations of attorneys from diverse backgrounds because having their representation and perspectives will help create a more equitable and just society,” she explained.

Justice McKenna previously received the ABA Stonewall Award in 2021 and the ABA Margaret Brent Women Lawyers of Achievement Award in 2023. With the addition of the Spirit of Excellence Award, she will become the first person to receive all three ABA honors. Her other recognitions include the National Asian Pacific American Bar Association’s Daniel K. Inouye Trailblazer Award in 2015.

The three previous recipients of the Spirit of Excellence Award from Hawaiʻi are former Hawaiʻi Supreme Court Chief Justice William S. Richardson and former members of Congress Patsy T. Mink and Colleen Hanabusa.