Hon. Peter B. Swann

AZ Court of Appeals

Judge Swann was appointed to the Arizona Court of Appeals in 2008 and currently serves as Chief Judge. From 2003-08 he was a judge of the Maricopa County Superior Court, serving in the Civil and Family Departments. From 2006-08, he served as Associate Civil Presiding Judge and helped develop the court’s electronic filing system. As an attorney in private practice in Phoenix at Steptoe & Johnson, LLP, he represented clients in commercial and constitutional litigation and commercial transactions. Judge Swann received his law degree from University of Maryland Law School, where he graduated first in his class in 1991. After serving as a law clerk to the Hon. Norman P. Ramsey in the United States District Court for the District of Maryland, he became a member of the State Bar of Arizona. He served six years on the Ethics Committee of the State Bar of Arizona, has served for the past 20 years on the Committee on the Rules of Civil Procedure and also served on its Professionalism Committee. In 2013 and 2014, Judge Swann served on a committee tasked with rewriting the Arizona Rules of Civil Appellate Procedure, and in 2015 and 2016 served on the Supreme Court’s Civil Rules Restyling Task Force. In 2016 and 2017, he served on the Supreme Court’s Civil Justice Reform Commission. In 2008, Judge Swann was named “Judge of the Year” by the Phoenix Chapter of the Arizona Board of Trial Advocates, and received that award from the Arizona Association of Defense Counsel in 2019. In 2016, Judge Swann was named “Judge of the Year” by the Arizona Supreme Court.  Judge Swann frequently serves as a mediator in both appellate and trial court matters.