Justice Adolfo S. Azcuna is a consistent honors student from college all the way to law school at the Ateneo de Manila University. He placed 4th in the 1962 bar examinations. He completed post-graduate studies in International Law and Jurisprudence at the Salzburg University in Austria in 1982.
He was elected as member of the 1971 Constitutional Convention and was also appointed as a member of the 1986 Constitutional Commission. He held several government posts during the term of President Corazon C. Aquino, first as Presidential Legal Counsel, then as Press Secretary and subsequently as Presidential Spokesperson.
In 2002, Justice Azcuna was appointed Associate Justice of the Supreme Court and upon his retirement therein he was appointed Chancellor of the Philippine Judicial Academy, a post he currently holds.
In 2014, he was elected as one of five new commissioners by the International Commission of Jurists (ICJ), a non-governmental organization defending human rights and the rule of law worldwide since 1952.