Ninth Circuit and Hawaii appellate specialist

Ms. McMillen is a graduate of the Kamehameha Schools, the University of Hawai`i, and New York Law School where she served as the managing editor of the Human Rights Annual and graduated with honors in 1987. She clerked for the New Jersey Court's Appellate Division. She began practicing law at Lowenstein Sandler in New Jersey where she represented individual and corporate clients in business, commercial, insurance and employment litigation, and in appellate matters. She also practiced with Ross & Hardies (now McGuire Woods), representing financial institutions in commercial litigation, bankruptcy proceedings and appeals. In 1998 she returned home to Hawai`i. Since then she has developed an extensive practice in civil and criminal appellate litigation in state and federal courts, and in all areas of family law.

In addition to litigation, she has extensive mediation experience: www.hawaiimediate.com. She mediates for Dispute Prevention & Resolution (DPR) in Honolulu, the Mediation Center of the Pacific's ACCESS ADR and the Hawai`i Supreme Court's Appellate Mediation Program. Her study and training includes advanced course work at the Straus Institute for Dispute Resolution at Pepperdine University School of Law.

Ms. McMillen is a former per diem judge for the State of Hawai`i in the Family and District Courts for the Second Circuit, Maui. She has served as adjunct legal faculty at Hawai`i Pacific University and University of Hawai`i Maui College. She is a coauthor to the Ninth Circuit Appellate Practice Guide, available to attorneys and the public at the Ninth Circuit's website.

Her service within the legal community includes: Lawyer Representative to the U.S. District Court for the District of Hawai`i; Appellate Lawyer Representative to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit; Board of Directors, Hawai`i State Bar Association and the Native Hawaiian Bar Association; Criminal Justice Act Panel, U.S. District Court Hawai‘i and Southern California; Volunteer Legal Services of Hawai`i. She has served as a mentor attorney in the Ninth Circuit's mentoring program. In 2022 and 2023 she received the Outstanding Pro Bono Service Award from the Hawai`i Access to Justice Commission.

She is a life fellow of the American Bar Foundation, a founding fellow of the Hawai`i Bar Foundation, a member of the American Bar Association, the Hawai`i State Bar Association and the Maui County Bar Association. On Maui she serves as liturgist and on the parish relations committee at Keawala’i Congregational Church.

Ms. McMillen is licensed to practice law in Hawai`i, New York and New Jersey; and in the U.S. Supreme Court, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second, Third and Ninth Circuits, the U.S. District Courts for the Southern and Eastern Districts of New York, New Jersey and Hawai'i.

Prior to her legal career, Ms. McMillen earned a masters degree in anthropology at Indiana University, Bloomington. She worked at the American Museum of Natural History in New York City.