Diane Johnsen

Honorable Judge

Arizona Court of Appeals

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Diane M. Johnsen grew up in a small copper mining town in Southern Arizona.  She graduated from the University of Arizona with a degree in journalism in 1975, then worked as a reporter for four years for the Arizona Daily Star, where she covered government and politics.  She left journalism to attend Stanford Law School, where she was a member of the Stanford Law Review.  After graduating from Stanford in 1982, she served a one-year judicial clerkship with Judge Ben Duniway on the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals.  She then worked for two years at Munger Tolles & Olson in Los Angeles before joining the Phoenix law firm now known as Osborn Maledon.  Governor Napolitano appointed her to Division One of the Arizona Court of Appeals in 2006.  Judge Johnsen served as Chief Judge of Division One during 2013-2015.  She is a member of the American Law Institute and has a Master of Laws degree in judicial studies from Duke Law School.  Her thesis for that program is "Building a Bench: A Close Look at State Appellate Courts Constructed by the Respective Methods of Judicial Selection," 53 S.D. Law Rev. 829 (2016).