Judge Robert E. Richardson was appointed to the bench in the circuit that covers Greenbrier and Pocahontas Counties on May 21, 2014. He was elected in 2016 and re-elected in 2024 to the newly renumbered Twenty-Ninth Judicial Circuit (Greenbrier and Pocahontas Counties).

Judge Richardson grew up in Lewisburg and graduated from Greenbrier East High School in 1980. He received a bachelor’s degree in political science from West Virginia University in 1984. While a student at WVU, he was the school’s first recipient of the Truman Scholarship (a national award presented to recognize leadership potential in public service). He also served as the WVU Mountaineer mascot during the 1982-83 academic year. Judge Richardson received a law degree in 1987 from the University of Virginia School of Law, where he was an editor of the Virginia Law Review, and he received a master of laws degree (LL.M.) from the Georgetown University Law Center in 1989.

Judge Richardson began his legal career with the Institute for Public Representation in Washington, D.C., where he worked primarily on matters concerning the civil rights of persons with disabilities. While in that position, he served as an adjunct professor at the Georgetown University Law Center. He returned to West Virginia in 1990 to work with West Virginia Legal Services Plan (now Legal Aid of West Virginia) as the managing attorney of its Clarksburg office. He also taught part-time as an adjunct faculty member at the West Virginia University College of Law. After a decade of public interest legal work, he returned to his hometown of Lewisburg in 1997 to pursue the private practice of law and opened his own firm in 2000.

His community service has included work on the boards of directors of several local and statewide organizations, including Almost Heaven Habitat for Humanity, Habitat for Humanity of West Virginia, Legal Aid of West Virginia, the Greenbrier Youth Camp, and HospiceCare. For 25 years, he served as the Director of the West Virginia Older 4-H Members Conference, a weeklong leadership development program for high school and college-age youth, and he has been inducted into the West Virginia 4-H Hall of Fame.

He and his wife, Susan, live in Greenbrier County.