The Hon.
Samuel
A.
Thumma
Samuel A. Thumma is the Director of the Arizona Supreme Court’s Center for Forensics and Artificial Intelligence, a position he has held since September 2026. The mission of the Center is to examine and disseminate the most up-to-date understanding of forensics, artificial intelligence and mental health issues as applied to various case types throughout the justice system. More information about the Center can be found here: https://www.azcourts.gov/forensicsciencecenter Previously, Sam served as a judge on the Arizona Court of Appeals, Division One, in Phoenix from 2012 to 2026, serving as Chief Judge (2017-19) and Vice Chief Judge (2015-17). Before that, he served for five years as a trial judge (criminal and juvenile rotations) on the Arizona Superior Court in Maricopa County.
Sam is a member of the National Judicial College Board of Trustees (2024-present), where he serves as Board Secretary, chairs the Governance Committee and is Chair-Elect of the Board. Previously, he served as faculty for various NJC educational programs for more than five years, teaching in-person and remote programs addressing various issues including ethics, writing, evidence, and judicial decision making.
Sam has been a Uniform Law Commissioner from Arizona since 2012. He has served as a Secretary of the ULC Executive Committee and currently serves as chair of the Joint Editorial Board on Civil Litigation and Dispute Resolution and chair of the Study Committee on the Protection of Name, Image, and Likeness. Sam has served on various Study, Drafting and other ULC Committees, including the Scope and Program Committee and the Committee to Review the ULC Constitution, Bylaws, and Rules.
A member of the American Law Institute since 2003, Sam has served as an Advisor to the Restatement of the Law (Third) of Torts: Remedies and an Advisor to the Restatement of the Law (Third) of Torts: Economic Harms. For many years, he served as a member of the Joint Technology Committee, appointed by the National Center for State Courts. He is a member of the Editorial Board for Judicature.
In the American Bar Association, Sam served as a Presidential appointee to the Advisory Council of the ABA Task Force on Law and Artificial Intelligence (2023-2026), having previously served as a Presidential appointee to the Standing Committee on Lawyer Referral and Information Services (2023-25) and the Standing Committee on Ethics and Professional Responsibility Judges Advisory Committee (2007-2010). In 2025, 2022, and 2019, Sam served on ABA Section of Legal Education and Admissions to the Bar Site Evaluation Teams addressing law school accreditation.
In the ABA Judicial Division, Sam served as Liaison to the Section of Litigation (2020-24) and is a member of the ABA JD’s Ethics and Professionalism Committee and the Court Technology Committee, which he chaired from 2014-18. Previously, Sam served on the ABA JD Nominating Committee (2022-23); as co-chair (2018-2020) and member (2016-2020) of the Editorial Board of The Judges’ Journal, and as a member of the ABA JD’s Communications and Forensic Science Committees.
In the ABA JD Appellate Judges Conference, Sam has served as a member of the AJC Nominating Committee (2025-26) an Executive Committee chair (2021-22); chair-elect (2020-21); vice chair (2019-20) and member and secretary (2016-19). Sam is a past chair of the Appellate Judges Education Institute, Inc., Board of Directors. He chaired the Education Committee for the 2019 AJEI Summit, held in Washington, D.C., and served as a member of the AJEI Summit Education Committee (2014-2023).
While a trial judge on the Arizona Superior Court, Sam served on the Editorial Board of the JD Record (2011-12) and as an Arizona Delegate to the National Conference of State Trial Judges (2008-2012). Particularly before joining the bench, Sam was active in the ABA’s Section of Litigation, where he served as Honorary Chair of the Section’s Annual Conference (2014); as Co-Editor of the Pretrial Practice & Discovery Newsletter (2006-2010) and was named an Outstanding Subcommittee Chair (2010). He is an American Bar Foundation Life Fellow.
In Arizona, Sam has chaired various Committees, Commissions and Task Forces for the Arizona Supreme Court and the State Bar of Arizona. Currently, he chairs the Arizona Commission on Access to Justice; is a member of the Arizona Supreme Court Steering Committee on Artificial Intelligence and the Courts, where he chairs the Access to Justice Workgroup; and is a member of the Task Force on Rules of the Supreme Court of Arizona. Previously, he co-chaired the COVID-19 Continuity of Court Operations During Public Health Emergency Workgroup (the Plan B Workgroup) and was co-editor of the Arizona Appellate Handbook for many years. He also chaired the Judicial Ethics Advisory Committee, the Task Force on Court Management of Digital Evidence, and the Task Force to Supplement Keeping of the Record by Electronic Means. For nine years, he served as a member of the State Bar of Arizona’s Committee on the Rules of Professional Conduct (the “Ethics Committee”).
In 2026, he received the inaugural Samuel A. Thumma Mentorship Award, established as an annual award by the Thurgood Marshall Inn of Court. Also in 2026, Sam received the Walter E. Craig Distinguished Service Award from the Arizona Bar Foundation, which also established the Thumma Technology for Justice Award to further technology use to advance access to justice. In 2025, Sam received the Chief Justice Richard W. Holmes Award of Merit from the American Judges Association for outstanding contributions to the judiciary. In 2023, Sam received the James A. Walsh Outstanding Jurist Award from the State Bar of Arizona, and, in 2021, he was named the Judge of the Year by the Arizona Supreme Court.
Sam co-teaches evidence at Arizona State University College of Law, having previously co-taught evidence to all new Arizona judges for many years. He also has taught remedies at the University of Arizona and Arizona State University Colleges of Law. Sam has taught more than 600 law-related seminars, in person and remote, internationally, nationally in nearly 30 states, and locally. Sam is a frequent author, having published 25 law review articles, seven book chapters and nearly 80 other law-related articles, with his work frequently cited by others.
In the community more broadly, Sam has been a Rotary 100 Club member since 2010, where he has served as a volunteer distributing food to those in need, as a dictionary project volunteer and on the Programming Committee. Previously, Sam was active in the American Red Cross, serving on the National Leadership Council, as member and vice chair of the National Resolutions Committee, as a member of the Service Area Council, and as chair of the Grand Canyon Chapter. He was awarded the American Red Cross National Leadership Award and was a National 125th Anniversary Gala Honoree. For nearly a decade, he has sung baritone in the Nostalgia Barbershop Quartet, featured in a recent ABA Journal article.
Before being appointed to the bench in 2007, Sam was an AV Peer Review Rated Lawyer and a partner at Perkins Coie Brown & Bain, P.A., in Phoenix, and an associate at Arnold & Porter in Washington, D.C. He served as a law clerk for Arizona Supreme Court Chief Justice Stanley G. Feldman and Judge David R. Hansen, United States District Court for the Northern District of Iowa. Sam received a Master of Laws from Duke University School of Law in 2020; graduated Order of the Coif from the University of Iowa College of Law in 1988, where he was a Note & Comment Editor on the Iowa Law Review, and graduated from Iowa State University in 1984, where he was a member of Cardinal Key and a Harry S. Truman Memorial Scholar.
Sam is married to Barbara J. Dawson, a partner at and chair of Snell & Wilmer, and their daughter Nicole is a roboticist in Cambridge, Massachusetts.