Charles J Adornetto

Judicial Education Officer

Maricopa County Justice Courts

Charles J. Adornetto is the Judicial Education Officer for the Maricopa County Justice Courts and a Judge Pro Tempore in several courts. In his many years of legal practice, Mr. Adornetto has been the Wickenburg Town Magistrate, the Chief Hearing Officer at the Arizona Department of Juvenile Corrections, the Chief Hearing Officer/Assistant Director of the Arizona Health Care Cost Containment System, and an Assistant Chief Administrative Law Judge at the Arizona Department of Transportation.

Mr. Adornetto graduated from Stanford Law School and has a B.S. in Political Science from Arizona State University. He has also attended the Judicial College of Arizona; the National Judicial College in Reno, Nevada, the Arizona College of Trial Advocacy, the Certified Public Manager program, and the State University of New York at Buffalo.

Mr. Adornetto is a member of the Arizona Commission on Access to Justice and the Chair of that group’s Limited Jurisdiction Court Self-Represented Litigant Workgroup. He is a past Chair of the Executive Council of Arizona State Bar Public Lawyer Section and of the Juvenile Law Section. He also serves on the State Bar Fee Arbitration Committee and has served on the Unauthorized Practice of Law Advisory and Peer Review Committees. He has also been a substitute teacher in our public schools and is the past president of A Stepping Stone Foundation, a charity providing preschool and family literacy services, along with college scholarships, to at-risk youth in Arizona.

Mr. Adornetto received three Strategic Agenda Awards from the Arizona Supreme Court for Enhancing Professionalism within Arizona’s Courts, in 2015 (Best Practice for Ensuring Access to Justice for Self-Represented Litigants); in 2020 (Best Practices and Webinars for Evictions During the Pandemic); and 2021 (New Judge Pro Tem Training Program); received two awards from the National Association of Counties in 2020 for Information Technology (Educational Podcast System) and Personnel Management, Employment and Training (New Pro Tem Training Program); and one in 2021 for County Administration and Management (Maricopa County Eviction Best Practices Program); and was a Supervisor of the Year at the Arizona Department of Juvenile Corrections in 2006. Mr. Adornetto has served as a Table Mentor or presenter at the Supreme Court’s Limited Jurisdiction New Judge Orientation from 2019 to 2023, and he won his high school talent show by singing lead vocals on Steve Martin’s “King Tut,” and he portrayed Nathan Detroit in his high school’s production of Guys and Dolls.

Mr. Adornetto was published as the co-author, with Judge Gerald Williams, of Pandemic Residential Eviction Moratoriums: An Analysis of Judicial Implementation and Recommendations for the Future, 54 Texas Tech L. Rev. 603 (Summer 2022), and the author of Injunctions Should Be Set to Pre-Issuance Hearings Unless Emergent, CIDVIC News, Volume 2, Issue 3 (August 18, 2023), pp 6-8.