Hon. Samuel A. Thumma
Judge, Arizona Court of Appeals, Division One, since 2012, and Chief Judge 2017-2019. Sam chairs the Appellate Judges Education Institute, Inc., Board and chaired the Appellate Judges’ Conference, ABA Judicial Division. He serves on the Uniform Law Commission’s Scope & Program Committee and chairs the Drafting Committee on Revising the Uniform Determination of Death Act. He is an Advisor to the ALI’s Restatement Of Law (Third) Of Torts: Remedies project. Sam chairs Arizona’s Commission on Access to Justice. He co-chaired Arizona’s COVID-19 Continuity of Court Operations During Health Emergency Workgroup; was co-editor of the Arizona Appellate Handbook; chaired the State Bar Civil Practice & Procedure and Fee Arbitration Committees and was a member of the Ethics Committee. He was the Arizona Supreme Court’s 2021 Judge of the Year.

Sam co-teaches evidence at ASU’s Sandra Day O’Connor College of Law. He has presented nearly 500 law-related programs and published 15 law review articles and 60 other law-related articles. Sam served as a Judge on the Maricopa County Superior Court for five years; a partner at Perkins Coie Brown & Bain, P.A., Phoenix, and an associate at Arnold & Porter, Washington, D.C. He clerked for Arizona Supreme Court Chief Justice Stanley G. Feldman and Federal Judge David R. Hansen, Northern District of Iowa. Sam received a Master of Laws, Duke University School of Law (2020); J.D., Order of the Coif, University of Iowa College of Law (1988), and B.S., Iowa State University (1984), where he was a Truman Scholar.