USD School of Law Alumna Samin Adib '09 (JD) Appointed Maricopa County Court Commissioner

SAN DIEGO (April 30, 2024) – University of San Diego (USD) School of Law alumna Samin Adib '09 (JD) has been appointed to serve as a Court Commissioner on the Maricopa County Bench in Arizona. Prior to her appointment, Commissioner Adib was a Deputy County Attorney in the Maricopa County Attorney’s office for a decade.

An immigrant, whose parents were also immigrants, Commissioner Adib and her family fled to New York City during the Iran-Iraq war in the late 1980’s. It was by luck that her parents were able to secure visas to the United States while on vacation in Spain, as Iran would not grant them. Speaking only Farsi, they left behind home, families, friends, and jobs to give their family an opportunity for an education and a meaningful and enriched life.

While her father found work as an architect and her mother worked the night shift at McDonalds, she and her brother were never left with a babysitter. Commissioner Adib began first grade without knowing any English and became a United States citizen in 2000.

It is with these experiences that Commissioner Adib brings her hard-work ethic and empathy to the Maricopa County Bench. As a prosecutor, she always tried to seek justice and took the time to understand and appreciate the struggles people were facing. She takes pride in striving to see both sides of every argument and has the admiration of her peers and members of the defense bar.

As a Middle Eastern immigrant woman, Commissioner Adib credits her diverse background and varied lived experience to being more open-minded and compassionate. In her application to the bench, she said, “My parents sacrificed their lives to achieve the opportunity for me to have a better life. It would be my honor to continue the legacy of their sacrifice by making a difference in my community as Commissioner. As a Commissioner, I will listen emphatically to those that find themselves in our court systems. I will strive to make well-reasoned decisions, to better my community and those around me, knowing the opportunity my parents worked hard to give me.”

Commissioner Adib “hopes that she will inspire others that look like me to recognize the power of their potential. I hope that little girls of color can see what is possible with hard work, dedication, and a little luck.”

Portions of this article were taken with permission from Commissioner Adib’s application to the bench.

About the University of San Diego School of Law

Each year, USD educates approximately 800 Juris Doctor and graduate law students from throughout the United States and around the world. The law school is best known for its offerings in the areas of business and corporate law, constitutional law, intellectual property, international and comparative law, public interest law and taxation.

USD School of Law is one of the 84 law schools elected to the Order of the Coif, a national honor society for law school graduates. The law school’s faculty is a strong group of outstanding scholars and teachers with national and international reputations and currently ranks 30th nationally among U.S. law faculties in scholarly impact and 41st nationally in past-year faculty downloads on the Social Sciences Research Network (SSRN). The school is accredited by the American Bar Association and is a member of the Association of American Law Schools. Founded in 1954, the law school is part of the University of San Diego, a private, independent, Roman Catholic university chartered in 1949.