Christopher T Whitten

Superior court

is a general jurisdiction trial court judge on the Superior Court of Arizona. Before his appointment to the bench in 2006, he was a trial lawyer for fifteen years, a member of the American Board of Trial Advocates (ABOTA) and certified by the Arizona State Bar as a specialist in injury and wrongful death litigation.

He is the Immediate Past Chair of the American Bar Association’s National Conference of State Trial Judges and the current Judicial Division representative on the ABA House of Delegates. He also serves on the ABA Nominations Committee. As an ABA member Judge Whitten currently serves as the Chair of the Commission on the American Jury, the Judicial Division’s liaison to the Section of Litigation and the Business Law Section. He has also served as a liaison to the Coalition for Justice, the Trial Court Time Standards Committee and the Advisory Group for Language Access to State Courts. He has worked as part of the Judicial Division’s ad hoc committee reviewing proposed changes to the Model Code of Judicial Conduct for Judicial Disqualification and was the editor of the JD RECORD. He serves on the Empirical Research Steering Committee of the Civil Jury Project at New York University. He also represented his colleagues from Maricopa County on the board of directors of the Arizona Judges Association.

Judge Whitten has taught as an adjunct professor at the Sandra Day O’Connor College of Law at Arizona State University, at Louisiana State University School of Law, at The University of San Diego School of Law, Emory University School of Law and at the Arizona Summit Law School. He sits on the Board of Trustees for the National Judicial College and regularly works with the National Institute for Trial Advocacy both nationally and internationally, most recently as the co-director of the San Diego Building Trial Skills Program. He also regularly teaches lawyers and judges internationally. He has trained fellow judges and lawyers in four of Mexico’s states as they reform their judicial process. He has worked on trial skills with Solicitors in Ireland as their rights of appearance have expanded. He has also worked in Myanmar talking to lawyers and judges about the importance of the Rule of Law.

Away from the bench, he has enjoyed serving his community as a board member and officer for many organizations, including the Arizona Foundation for Blind Children, the University of San Diego School of Law Alumni Board, the Arizona School for the Arts, the Recreational Association of Madison Meadows and Simis, the St. Thomas Moore Society and the Brophy Lacrosse Club.

He has been married to his high school girlfriend, Ann, for over twenty five years. Together, they raised two remarkable sons, Tom and Charlie. Judge Whitten and his sons recently were part of a team that successfully led a group of thirteen blind hikers on a marathon twenty-four mile, one-day trek from rim to rim across the Grand Canyon. (2/2016)