Jennifer Rebholz, Former President of the State Bar of Arizona

Board-Certified Specialization Program

Modernizing Professional Standards

Board certification is the State Bar of Arizona’s own measure of expertise in a practice area. Jennifer earned it in Personal Injury and Wrongful Death in 2020, a credential that requires documented trial experience, peer review, and a written examination.

Having earned it, she was asked to do something harder: examine whether the system conferring it was still working. In 2024, State Bar President Ted Schmidt created a task force to review the framework established in 1989 and asked Jennifer to chair it. In 2025 the task force became a standing Working Group, which she still chairs.

When the review began, only 416 Arizona attorneys held certification across all ten specialization areas, just 93 of them in personal injury and wrongful death. The credential existed. Public understanding of what it meant largely did not.

Internally, the review examined certification criteria, peer review, examination structure, and continuing education, and the criteria have since been revamped across all ten areas. Externally, the Working Group streamlined the application and launched public education on what it takes to earn and keep certification, through Arizona Attorney Magazine, video, and social media.

What remains is public awareness. A marketing budget has been approved, and deploying it is the next phase: making the designation legible to the public, not only to the lawyers who hold it.

For chairing this effort, Jennifer received the 2025 State Bar President’s Award. The following year the Board of Governors named her a recipient of the Award of Special Merit, established in 1988 for significant contributions to public understanding of the legal system, the administration of justice, and confidence in the legal profession. In its 38 years it has gone unawarded three times. Ann A. Scott Timmer received it in 2012.