Panel Discussion with Current and Former Supreme Court Justices (2025 Workers' Compensation Conference)

Vice Chief Justice Ann A Scott Timmer Related Seminars and Products

Vice Chief Justice

Supreme Court of Arizona

Chief Justice Ann A. Scott Timmer joined the Arizona Supreme Court in 2012. She was elected by her colleagues as Vice Chief Justice in 2019 and she was sworn in as Chief Justice in July 2024 for a five-year term. Justice Timmer is a member of the National Conference of Bar Examiners Board of Trustees (Secretary), has been elected to The American Law Institute and serves as the liaison for the ABA House of Delegates for the Conference of Chief Justices. Among other recognitions, she has been named one of a New Decade of Arizona’s Most Intriguing Women (2022), an ABA Journal and ABA Center for Innovation Legal Rebel (2021), the Arizona Capitol Times Woman of the Year (2020) and was elected to the Maricopa County Bar Association Hall of Fame. Prior to her appointment to the Supreme Court bench, Justice Timmer served on the Arizona Court of Appeals for twelve years, serving as its chief judge for three years. Before joining the bench, Justice Timmer practiced law in Phoenix, focusing primarily on commercial litigation. Justice Timmer earned her bachelor’s degree from the University of Arizona, her J. D. magna cum laude, from Arizona State University Law School (now the Sandra Day O’Connor College of Law), and a Masters in Judicial Studies from Duke University Law School.

Maria Elena Cruz Related Seminars and Products

Arizona Court of Appeals - Division One

Justice Maria Elena Cruz currently serves on the Arizona Supreme Court. Prior to her appointment, she served for nearly eight years as a Judge on the Arizona Court of Appeals. On that court she presided over appeals in every area of the law, including complex commercial litigation, criminal, family, juvenile, tax, unemployment, and other administrative law matters.

Her service as an appellate judge was preceded by her time as the Presiding Judge of Superior Court in Yuma County. While she served in that capacity, administering the business of the courts county-wide, Justice Cruz presided over serious criminal cases, Drug Court, and Restitution Court, a victim restitution program she had established in her county and presided over as judge pro tem until her appointment to the Arizona Supreme Court. During her term as a superior court judge, Justice Cruz also presided over juvenile, family, civil and criminal matters.

Justice Cruz earned a Juris Doctorate and her Bachelor of Arts from the University of Arizona. After clerking at the Pima County Attorney’s Office, she began her practice as a prosecutor in Yuma County. Later, Justice Cruz practiced in criminal defense, eventually venturing into solo practice, and served as judge pro tem for the Cocopah Indian Tribe. In 2008 Justice Cruz became the first woman and first Latinx elected Superior Court Judge in Yuma County, and in 2025 she became the first Afro-Latina appointed to the Arizona Supreme Court.

In 2018 Justice Cruz was appointed to serve on the Arizona Supreme Court Task Force on Delivery of Legal Service, where she led the workgroup on Alternative Business Structures and the Legal Paraprofessional certification was born. She was a zealous advocate for the implementation of the program and still promotes it throughout the State.

Justice Cruz continues to work to advance access to justice throughout the state by serving on the Task Force on Public Communications, a hallmark of the Arizona Supreme Court.

For more than a decade, Justice Cruz contributed to the development of the law internationally by serving as a professor of law teaching trial advocacy in various regions within the Republic of Mexico. Today, in addition to her service on the Arizona Supreme Court, she also serves on the high Court’s Commission on Victims in the Court, Advisory Committee on Evidence Retention, and Committee on Judicial Education and Training. She is a mentor to law students, legal paraprofessionals, and judges.

Thomas A Zlaket Related Seminars and Products

Managing Attorney

Thomas A. Zlaket, P.L.L.C.

Thomas Zlaket was graduated from the University of Notre Dame in 1962. He received his law degree in 1965 from the University of Arizona, and earned a Master of Laws from the University of Virginia in 2001. In 2002, he was awarded an Honorary Doctor of Law degree from the University of Arizona.

Admitted to practice in Arizona and California, he has been a Fellow of the American College of Trial Lawyers since 1982, and a member of the American Board of Trial Advocates since 1972. Mr. Zlaket has tried several hundred jury trials to a conclusion in his career and has been lead counsel on countless other matters before state and federal courts at both the trial and appellate levels.

Mr. Zlaket served on the faculty of the Arizona College of Trial Advocacy for several years. He has also taught at the Hastings College of Trial Advocacy and the National Institute of Trial Advocacy. He most recently served as a Professor of Practice at the University of Arizona James E. Rogers College of Law, teaching a class on Professionalism.

Mr. Zlaket is a past president of the State Bar of Arizona, a Founding Fellow of the Arizona Bar Foundation, and a Life Fellow of the American Bar Foundation.

Mr. Zlaket practiced law in Arizona from 1965-1992, when he was appointed to the Arizona Supreme Court as an Associate Justice. In 1996, he served as Vice Chief Justice, and from 1997-2002 he was the Chief Justice of the Arizona Supreme Court. Since his retirement from the state court in 2002, he has served as Chief Judge of the Tonto Apache Tribal Court of Appeals, and as a Judge Pro Tem of the San Carlos Apache Tribal Court. Mr. Zlaket still maintains an active law practice in Tucson, Arizona.

Mr. Zlaket has been the recipient of numerous honors, including the Chief Justice Richard W. Holmes Award of Merit from the American Judges Association, the James A. Walsh Outstanding Jurist Award from the State Bar of Arizona, the Paul C. Reardon Award from the National Center for State Courts, the Distinguished Citizen Award from the University of Arizona, and the Lifetime Achievement Award from the University of Arizona James E. Rogers College of Law.

Among his many other activities, Mr. Zlaket has been a trustee of the Nature Conservancy (Arizona Chapter); a member of the D-M 50, a support group for the men and women serving at Davis Monthan Air Force Base in Tucson; a board member and Chairman of the Tucson Airport Authority; and a member and past president of the Tucson Conquistadores, an organization supporting youth athletics in Pima County, Arizona.