Governor names Dylan O’Reilly to First Judicial District Court seat

Dylan O’Reilly will join the First Judicial District Court on July 4 after Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham named him to a newly created seat for the district that serves Los Alamos County, Rio Arriba County and Santa Fe County. The Legislature increased the bench from 10 judges to 11 and set aside $451,400 in fiscal year 2027 for the new post, including salary, benefits, staff, furniture, equipment and supplies.

The new position is a civil court judgeship. The same three-county footprint is also served by the First Judicial District Attorney’s Office.

Lujan Grisham moved to create the seat in a Jan. 29 Senate Executive Message asking lawmakers to consider Senate Bill 35. Senate Bill 35 carried the additional judgeship and the appropriation that pays for it.

O’Reilly brings 26 years of practice in New Mexico, most recently as a shareholder and director at Miller Stratvert P.A., where he focused on commercial litigation and outside general counsel work for hospitals, universities and businesses. He practiced in Farmington and Albuquerque before settling in Santa Fe in 2015. He was named the Business Law Section’s Business Lawyer of the Year in 2013. He also served as a Bar Commissioner for the State Bar of New Mexico and as rules committee chair for the New Mexico Board of Bar Examiners, where he led a rewrite of the board’s appeals procedures.

His background includes a Juris Doctor from the University of New Mexico School of Law in 1999, where he received the Judge Oliver Seth Award for Ethics, and a bachelor’s degree in history from Oberlin College. He was appointed to the New Mexico Board of Bar Examiners by the New Mexico Supreme Court in 2021.

The appointment followed a public selection process. The First Judicial District Judicial Nominating Commission initially recommended three of eight applicants in April, then reopened applications and recommended six of eight applicants at the end of May before the governor chose O’Reilly. Under state law, he will serve until the next general election after the appointment.