Arizona Trailblazers

1902 - Sarah Herring Sorin becomes the first woman admitted to the Arizona bar. In 1913, she became the first woman to argue a case unassisted by a male counsel in front of the U.S Supreme Court.

1936 - Joseph Padilla becomes the first Hispanic lawyer in Arizona.

1940 - Mary Estella Cota-Robles becomes the first Hispanic woman admitted to the Arizona Bar.

1948 - Hayzel B. Daniels, a graduate of the University of Arizona Law School,  becomes the first African American  to be admitted to the State Bar of Arizona. In 1965 he was appointed as a Phoenix City Court Judge, becoming the first African American judge in Arizona.

1951 - Lorna Lockwood becomes the first woman Superior Court judge in Arizona.

1952 - Mary Anne Richey becomes the first Deputy County Attorney in Pima County and goes on to become the first woman United States Attorney in the District of Arizona and Arizona’s first woman federal judge.

1953 - Lawrence Huerta becomes the first Native American admitted to Arizona Bar.

1961 - Lorna Lockwood becomes the first woman Supreme Court Justice in Arizona and goes on to become the first woman in the United States to be Chief Justice of a State Supreme Court.

1975- Raul Castro becomes the Arizona's first latino governor.  

1977 - Phoenix attorney Thomas Tang becomes the first Asian American judge on the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit.

1979 - Maricopa County Superior Court Judge Valdemar Aguirre Cordova becomes the first Mexican American federal judge in the U.S. District Court of Arizona.

1980 - Cecil B. Patterson, Jr. becomes the first black judge appointed to the Maricopa County Superior Court. In September 1995 he became the first black judge appointed to the Arizona Court of Appeals, Division One.

1981 - Arizona Court of Appeals Judge Sandra Day O’Connor becomes the first woman justice to sit on the United States Supreme Court.

1991 - Roxana C. Bacon becomes the first woman president of the State Bar of Arizona.

1999 - Patricia Orozco becomes the first latina Yuma County Attorney.

2000 - Mary Murgia becomes the first latina to serve the District of Arizona on the Federal Bench.

2005 - Barbara Rodriguez Mundell becomes the first female and Hispanic Presiding Judge of Maricopa County.

2005 - Roxanne Song Ong becomes the first female and Asian Presiding Judge of the Phoenix Municipal Court.

2014 - Diane Humetewa is appointed to the U.S. District Court for Arizona, making her the first Native American woman federal judge in U.S. history.

2016 - Lisa Loo becomes the first female Asian American President of the State Bar of Arizona

2022 - Jessica Sanchez becomes the first latina President of the State Bar of Arizona

2023 - Benjamin Taylor becomes the first Black President of the State Bar of Arizona