Scott Bales served on the Arizona Supreme Court for fourteen years, including as Chief Justice from July 2014 until July 2019. After retiring from the Court, he was the Executive Director of the Institute for the Advancement of the American Legal System through July 2020. He now consults on appeals and internal investigations and serves as a neutral.

Justice Bales serves on the Council of the American Law Institute and the Board of Trustees for the National Conference of Bar Examiners. He previously chaired both the Council of the ABA’s Section on Legal Education and the ABA’s Appellate Judges Conference. Justice Bales has often taught courses at the law schools at Arizona State University and the University of Arizona. Before joining the Court, he practiced law in Arizona for nearly 20 years.

He was a partner in Phoenix firms that later became Osborn Maledon and Lewis Roca. As Arizona’s Solicitor General from 1999-2001, he handled major appeals, oversaw the enforcement of Arizona election laws, and supervised the preparation of legal opinions. Justice Bales also was a Deputy Assistant Attorney General for the U.S. Justice Department’s Office of Policy Development, a federal prosecutor, and a Special Investigative Counsel for the Justice Department’s Inspector General. He clerked for Justice Sandra Day O’Connor and for Ninth Circuit Judge Joseph T. Sneed III. After graduating from Michigan State University, he received a master’s degree in economics and his law degree from Harvard.

Clint Bolick was appointed by Governor Doug Ducey in January 2016 to serve on the Arizona Supreme Court and was retained by the voters in 2018 and 2024.
Prior to joining the Court, Justice Bolick litigated constitutional cases in state and federal courts from coast to coast, including the U.S. Supreme Court. Among other positions, he served as Vice President for Litigation at the Goldwater Institute and as Co-founder and Vice President for Litigation at the Institute for Justice. He has litigated in support of school choice, freedom of enterprise, private property rights, freedom of speech, and federalism, and against racial classifications and government subsidies.
Justice Bolick received his Juris Doctor degree from the University of California at Davis, where he has been recognized as a distinguished alumnus, and his Bachelor of Arts degree magna cum laude from Drew University. He serves as a research fellow with the Hoover Institution. Among other honors, he was named one of the 90 Greatest DC Lawyers in the Last 30 Years by Legal Times in 2008, received a Bradley Prize in 2006, and was recognized as one of the nation’s three lawyers of the year by American Lawyer in 2002 for his successful defense of school vouchers in Zelman v. Simmons-Harris.
Justice Bolick is a prolific author of a dozen books and hundreds of articles. Among his most recent books are Unshackled: Freeing America’s K-12 Education System: Immigration Wars: Forging an American Solution, co-authored with former Florida Governor Jeb Bush; and David’s Hammer: The Case for an Activist Judiciary. Bolick serves as an adjunct professor of constitutional law at Arizona State University’s Sandra Day O’Connor School of Law and has served as a lecturer at Harvard University’s John F. Kennedy School of Government.

Hon. John Pelander was appointed to the Arizona Supreme Court by Governor Janice Brewer in July 2009 after 14 years with Division Two of the Court of Appeals, where he served as that court’s chief judge from July 2004 through June 2009. In July 2014, he became Vice Chief Justice of the Supreme Court and served in that role until January 2018.
Justice Pelander retired from the bench March 1, 2019. Since then, pursuant to Chief Justice administrative orders, he has continued to periodically sit with the Court in a call-back, active-duty capacity. From 2020 to 2024, Justice Pelander taught a one-semester course (Judicial Opinion Writing) at the University of Arizona College of Law. Since his retirement from the bench, he has also done some private consulting work in various law-related areas. In addition, he serves as a Christian Legal Society volunteer lawyer, assisting Tucson Gospel Rescue Mission residents in identifying and resolving legal issues through the Homeless Courts in Tucson City Court and Pima County Justice Court; and since 2019 he has served as a member of the Pusch Ridge Christian Academy governing board.
Justice Pelander received his bachelor of arts degree from Wittenberg University (1973, cum laude), his J.D. degree from the University of Arizona (1976, with high distinction and Order of the Coif), and his Master of Laws in Judicial Process from the University of Virginia in 1998. Justice Pelander is a former shareholder with the Tucson law firm then known as Slutes, Sakrison, Grant & Pelander, P.C., where his practice from 1977 to 1995 focused on insurance defense, employment law, commercial litigation, and appeals.
Before beginning his law practice, he served as Executive Editor of the Arizona Law Review and as a law clerk to the Hon. Richard H. Chambers of the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals from 1976-77. Before joining the bench, Justice Pelander was a certified specialist in the field of personal injury and wrongful death. He was an associate with the American Board of Trial Advocates, has taught at numerous state and county bar association programs, and has served as a faculty member of the Arizona College of Trial Advocacy. Justice Pelander also has served on the Arizona Commission for Judicial Performance Review, the Arizona Judicial Council, as chair of Arizona’s Judicial Ethics Advisory Committee, and as an officer of the national Council of Chief Judges of the State Courts of Appeal. In 2015, Justice Pelander was elected to membership in the American Law Institute.