Sigrid Vendrell-Polanco

Biography

Sigrid Vendrell-Polanco, J.D., is a Visiting Assistant Professor at St. Mary’s University School of Law who specializes in Territorial Law, Criminal Law and Negotiations.

Vendrell-Polanco joined St. Mary’s University School of Law in August 2017 as a Law Success Instructor, later becoming Service Professor of Law. As a Visiting Professor of Law, Vendrell-Polanco’s legal scholarship focuses on territorial law, examining legal issues regarding the political status of Puerto Rico and other U.S. territories. In her scholarship, she examines the constitutional history of American territorial expansion and the ramifications of the application of the U.S. Constitution in the territories, including citizenship and nationhood. Her forthcoming research will be published in the Brooklyn Law Review Journal in early Winter 2024.

Before transitioning to doctrinal faculty, Vendrell-Polanco taught courses as law faculty within the Law Success Program for over 6 years. She taught Legal Methods, Legal Communications, Analysis and Professionalism and Bar Preparation for Credit. Vendrell-Polanco also directed the supplemental bar preparation program (Raise the Bar) from 2018 to 2023, assisting graduates to prepare for the Texas Bar Exam.

Vendrell-Polanco graduated with honors from Texas A&M University with an undergraduate degree in International Studies and earned her law degree from California Western School of Law in 2014 with an Academic Excellence Award. Vendrell-Polanco has had a variety of professional experiences, including criminal defense in Southern California and representing low-income employees with numerous employment claims such as wage and hour violations, discrimination, harassment and wrongful termination claims.

During law school, Vendrell-Polanco worked at the California Western School of Law Library and worked with organizations such as California Innocence Project, Public Interest Law Foundation, Community Law Project Clinic, and clerked for the United States Attorney’s Office in the Southern District of California Criminal Enterprise Section.

• Pro Bono/Public Service Honors Society, California Western School of Law, 2015
• Phi Alpha Delta Law Fraternity

Articles:

• Puerto Rican Presidential Voting Rights: Why Precedent Should be Overturned, and Other Options for Suffrage, 89 Brook. L. Rev. (2024) (forthcoming).

Presentations

• “Building Communities for the Bar Exam”, Tenth Annual Association of Academic Support Educators Conference, May 2022 Honors and Awards: Phi Alpha Delta Law Fraternity