Sandra Mae Tolentino Magalang is a J.S.D. Candidate at Yale Law School, where she completed her LL.M. degree in 2020. She obtained her J.D., cum laude, in 2014, and her B.A. (Public Administration), summa cum laude, in 2010, both from the University of the Philippines.
Before coming to Yale, she was an associate attorney specializing in litigation and arbitration. She appeared before the Philippine Supreme Court in two important constitutional litigation cases: Republic v. Sereno (G.R. No. 237428, 11 May 2018), where she represented a former Chief Justice during impeachment and subsequent quo warranto proceedings against her, and Poe-Llamanzares v. Commission on Elections (G.R. No. 221697-700, 8 March 2016), which led to the recognition of the right of foundlings to natural-born citizenship, previously a gray area in Philippine law. Sandra ranked third in the 2014 Philippine Bar Examinations. She taught courses in constitutional law and administrative law at the University of the Philippines. From 2020-2021, she was a Yale Fox Fellow at Waseda University in Tokyo, Japan.
Sandra’s research interests lie in comparative constitutional law, international law (with a focus on international arbitration), and legal history. She currently works on the intersection of U.S., Philippine, and Japanese constitutional development in the late 19th to early 20th century.
Doctoral Committee
Professors Bruce Ackerman (chair), Robert C. Post (reader), and Taisu Zhang (reader).
Professor Bryan Dennis Tiojanco from the Graduate Schools for Law and Politics of the University of Tokyo additionally acts as an independent advisor.
Education
LL.M., Yale Law School, 2020
J.D., salutatorian and cum laude, University of the Philippines, 2014
B.A. (Public Administration), valedictorian and summa cum laude, University of the Philippines, 2010
Contact Information
sandra.magalang@yale.edu