Judge Richard Puglisi

Richard Puglisi was appointed as a United States Magistrate Judge for the District of Hawai‘i on April 1, 2011.  He was previously the Chief United States Magistrate Judge for the District of New Mexico, where he served from February 1996 to April 2011.

Judge Puglisi attended the University of New Mexico where he received a B.A., cum laude in Economics/Political Science in 1975.  Thereafter, he attended Fordham Law School and the University of New Mexico School of Law, graduating from New Mexico in 1979.

He served on active duty as a Navy JAG officer and was stationed at Pearl Harbor, Hawai‘i and, thereafter, as a Special Assistant United States Attorney for the District of Hawai‘i.  In 1984, he joined the Santa Fe law firm of Montgomery & Andrews, and was named partner in 1988.  In 1991, he joined the Albuquerque law firm of Madison, Harbour, Mroz and Puglisi, as a partner, where he practiced law until his appointment to the federal bench in 1996.  Judge Puglisi’s practice focused on litigation in the areas of professional liability, products liability and civil rights law.  He was admitted to the New Mexico Bar in 1980 and the Hawai‘i Bar in 1981.    

As a judge, he served as a member of the Judicial Conference Committee on the Administration of the Magistrate Judges’ System, the Magistrate Judges’ Advisory Group of the Administrative Office of U.S. Courts, the Federal Judicial Center Education Committee and is currently serving on the Ninth Circuit Magistrate Judges’ Executive Board.  He has been a frequent lecturer with the National Advocacy Center in Columbia, South Carolina and currently lectures at the William S. Richardson School of Law at the University of Hawai‘i, where he teaches Federal Courts.

Judge Puglisi is a graduate of the U.S. Army War College and retired as an Army Colonel in 2010 after 30 years of both active and reserve service.