Ann Woodley

Part-time Professor of Practice

Professor Ann Woodley is an Arizona Wildcat, having graduated summa cum laude with a B.A. from the University of Arizona (with a double major in Political Science and Journalism).  She also graduated cum laude with a J.D. from the Sandra Day O’Connor College of Law at Arizona State University.

Professor Woodley has been a full-time law professor for more than 25 years at three different law schools, and has taught as an adjunct at two others.  She has taught Civil Procedure I and II, Introduction to Civil Litigation I and II (a combined Civil Procedure and Torts course), Pretrial Practice, Interviewing and Counseling, Alternative Dispute Resolution (ADR), Mediation Skills, Mediation Advocacy, Employment Discrimination, Constitutional Law II, and Contracts I and II. She has also taught a month-long New Teachers’ Development workshop for new law professors; Best Practices sessions for professors; emotional intelligence seminars for faculty, staff, and students; a series of student success workshops; and ADR and Civil Procedure-related seminars for the bar and the public. She is a certified mediator and in addition to mediating many state and federal court cases, she has coached mediation advocacy teams and has trained hundreds of mediators. 

Her scholarship has focused on litigation, ADR, and teaching. The second edition of her book, “Litigating in Federal Court: A Guide to the Rules” was published by Carolina Academic Press in 2014.  Professor Woodley’s co-authored article on the Introduction to Civil Litigation course was published in 2017 in the Journal of Legal Education, and she is currently working on a student success book tentatively titled “The Gap Between Learning and Leading: The Science of Personal, Academic and Professional Success.”

Professor Woodley’s law practice experience includes serving as a judicial law clerk for the Chief Judge of the U.S. District Court for the District of Arizona, a commercial and employment litigator in the Washington, D.C. office of Winston and Strawn, and the Litigation Section Chief for the Civil Rights Division of the Arizona Attorney General’s Office. She is licensed to practice law in Arizona, California, Washington, D.C., and Ohio.

She currently serves as a Judge Pro Tem for the Maricopa County Superior Courts, the Maricopa County Justice Courts, and the Tempe Municipal Court.  She also has a law coaching business (and is a Certified Professional Coach), and is a present or past member of organizations including the American Bar Association (ABA) Section of Dispute Resolution, the ABA Representation in Mediation Competition Coordinating Committee (and was the national chair of the competition), the Association of Conflict Resolution, and the Arizona State Bar ADR Section.  She has received numerous awards and honors, including being selected in July 2021 to receive the Albert Nelson Marquis Who’s Who Lifetime Achievement Award.

Professor of Practice