About me
Samuel A. Thumma is a Judge on the Arizona Court of Appeals, Division One, where he has served since 2012, including as Chief Judge. Before that, he served for five years as a trial Judge on the Arizona Superior Court in Maricopa County.
Sam is Secretary of the National Judicial College Board of Trustees. Sam is a Uniform Law Commissioner, most recently serving as Secretary of the Executive Committee. He is an Advisor to the American Law Institute’s RESTATEMENT OF THE LAW (THIRD) OF TORTS: REMEDIES. Sam serves on the Advisory Council of the ABA Task Force on Law and AI and previously chaired the ABA JD Appellate Judges Conference and the Appellate Judges Education Institute, Inc., Board.
Sam has chaired various groups for the Arizona Supreme Court and the State Bar of Arizona. He chairs the Arizona Commission on Access to Justice and is a member of the Arizona Steering Committee on AI and the Courts. Sam received the Chief Justice Richard W. Holmes Award of Merit from the American Judges Association (2025); the James A. Walsh Outstanding Jurist Award from the State Bar of Arizona (2023) and he was named the Judge of the Year by the Arizona Supreme Court (2025). Sam has taught nearly 600 law-related seminars and published nearly 100 law-related articles.
Sam was a partner at Perkins Coie Brown & Bain, P.A., in Phoenix, and an associate at Arnold & Porter in Washington, D.C., having 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 (2020); graduated from the University of Iowa College of Law (1988) and from Iowa State University (1984).
