Governor Jim Justice appointed Judge Richard D. Stephens to the bench in the Twenty-Fourth Family Court Circuit (Berkeley and Jefferson Counties), and he was sworn in on August 23, 2021. He was elected in 2022 and re-elected in 2024.  

Judge Stephens received an undergraduate degree from Alderson-Broaddus College in 1998. He graduated from the Claude W. Pettit College of Law at Ohio Northern University in 2001.

Judge Stephens was an assistant prosecuting attorney in Berkeley County for 10 years then maintained a solo law practice in the Eastern Panhandle for five years prior to becoming a Berkeley County magistrate, a position he held for four years before becoming a judge.

He and his wife, Colleen Stephens, live in Falling Waters with their four children.