Supreme Court Chief Justice Ann A. Scott Timmer is the fourth woman in Arizona history to hold this position.
Stating, “We are a legal desert within an actual desert,” Arizona Supreme Court Chief Justice Ann A. Scott Timmer says there are not enough lawyers to go around, particularly in Arizona’s rural communities. Thus, Expanding and Promoting Access to Justice tops her five key goals in her Strategic Agenda, “And Justice for All,” which she is rolling out for her five-year term.
“We have a great system, but what kind of meaningful justice is there – I’m talking about civil justice – if you can’t afford the lawyers? We’re actually 49th out of 50 states in terms of numbers of lawyers per capita,” said Chief Justice Timmer. “The rural areas are really light in lawyers. Even if you find a lawyer, they’re very expensive. Who can afford it for their consumer debt problems or their landlord/tenant problems or family law if they are getting divorced or have custody matters?”
Noting we have one of the most creative states when it comes to helping people navigate the legal system, Timmer says Arizona was the first to open self-help centers. She adds that the High Court has made it possible for licensed paraprofessionals to practice law in certain designated areas such as city courts for small dollar disputes, misdemeanor crimes where no jail time is involved, and family law.
“We test them. We do background checks. They have an ethics code, and they are actually affiliate members of the State Bar of Arizona,” she said, of the 60 paraprofessionals now operating in the state.
She is also working on creating community justice workers. These would be people who are already employed in social service agencies, for example, and could be licensed to deliver legal advice under the supervision of legal aid firms.
Her hope, she says, is for people to have the option of going to a self-help center and paying $50 for a lawyer or legal professional to walk them through the process. And, for those who want more, such as legal representation in court, they could choose from a menu of sorts for services and pay accordingly.
Maintaining Public Trust
Goal two is Maintaining Public Trust and Confidence. She says, “Distrust in courts erodes respect for the law, which is foundational for our democracy.” Thus, Judge Timmer is encouraging judges to be their own spokespeople regarding their case decisions, so that they are the ones explaining what rulings actually mean and what they don’t mean, without relying on the media or others to translate them.
“I’ve told judges in the [judicial] branch and my own colleagues that we have to start getting out there with our own media, our own educational institute. We can’t just send out these rulings and then wait for the media to try to digest them, which can be very complicated.”
Timmer has created a group of media and marketing professionals to help judges communicate with the public better. She says she’d like to get a junior council together in middle schools and high schools to find out how students are learning about the court system.
“If we have to be on Tik Tok, we’ll be on Tik Tok, but we need to be able to start communicating with everyone. It’s so important that we can have confidence and trust in our judicial system. We can’t afford to let people take our courts away from us. And, if we don’t have trust in the courts, that’s exactly what’s going to happen. The people in the judicial system will come and go, but the institution itself just needs to remain rock-solid or I fear for our democracy.”
Timmer acknowledges that public trust in the judicial system has been on the decline. A 2022 report from Duke Law School states that only 25% of those surveyed said they had “quite a lot of confidence” in the U.S. Supreme Court. And she says she understands the public perception that governors and presidents “pack the benches” for political outcomes.
“I can tell you, in my experience, politics never actually come into play with any decision. It just doesn’t happen. But from the outside looking in, it can seem that way.”
Protecting Children, Families, Communities
Goal three is Protecting Children, Families and Communities. Chief Justice Timmer says she is very concerned about youth. “The good news is that fewer and fewer kids are getting arrested and prosecuted for delinquency. And that’s great. The bad news is the type of delinquency acts that are being committed are more violent than ever. And that’s very disturbing.”
Last month, she held a Youth Violence Summit for Arizona. All 15 counties were represented with participants – including police officers, prosecutors, defense attorneys, judges and mental health professionals – charged with coming up with the best practices for steering young people away from crime.
“They are still just children and the last thing we want to do is just lock people up. We want to do everything we can to prevent that because if they are locked up, we know from evidence-based studies, the likelihood increases that they will go on to a life of adult crime.”
Advancing Excellence, Innovation
Goal four is Advancing Judicial Branch Excellence and Innovation. The Arizona Supreme Court has a partnership with Arizona State University and the Center for Forensics and Artificial Intelligence for guidance on how to safely use AI in a variety of tasks.
“I’m most excited to find out how the user, people who don’t have legal training, can use AI to navigate the judicial system to help them with legal issues that maybe they haven’t confronted before.”
Attracting the Best
Goal five is Enhancing Professionalism and Leadership Within Our Justice System. Chief Justice Timmer is striving to make state judicial system jobs more attractive.
“We are never going to be able to compete with the private sector [for successful lawyers to become judges], the pay differential is just too great – although we still have pensions for non-judges. For everyone else, we are losing people right and left. And it’s not to the private sector, it’s to other governments. State government does not pay as well as the cities; it does not pay as well as the counties.”
She says that at a time when the courts want more technology and more e-filing, they are losing their tech people to other governmental entities, for example. “We just did an employee differential study for the same positions, comparing state to city and county, and we are at 17.6% less pay. That is my absolute No. 1 budget goal for this upcoming cycle. We need to give our employees raises.”
An Early View into the Legal System
Chief Justice Timmer attended Arcadia High School in Phoenix. As a teenager, she was robbed at gunpoint while selling movie tickets at a Scottsdale movie theater. “It was scary, but you always think, ‘How will I react in that kind of a situation?’ And it turns out that I learned I was actually pretty calm about it. It was a little bit of a birds-eye view into the legal system.”
She attended both the University of Arizona and ASU and earned her master’s in judicial studies at Duke Law School. She worked in private practice as a lawyer in Phoenix for 15 years, served on the Arizona Court of Appeals for 12 years, appointed by Governor Jane Hull, and has been serving on the Arizona Supreme Court for 12 years, vice chief justice for five of those years, appointed by Governor Jan Brewer. Timmer was sworn in as chief justice on July 1, 2024.
“A lot of people don’t realize that the Arizona Supreme Court actually runs the state court system and the practice of law. In that way, we are very unlike the U.S. Supreme Court, which simply decides cases. That is the whole reason I have stuck around this long, to nudge the system in a direction that I believe it should go: to serve people.” FBN
By Bonnie Stevens, FBN
Arizona Chief Justice Ann A. Scott Timmer and FBN Editor Bonnie Stevens were friends at Arcadia High School in Phoenix. Watch the full interview on Zonie Living at StarWorldwideNetworks.com
Courtesy Photo: Arizona Supreme Court Chief Justice Ann A. Scott Timmer was sworn in for her five-year term in the High Court’s top position on July 1, making her the fourth women to serve as chief justice in Arizona history.