SANTA FE – Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham announced Wednesday that she has named Jared Garner Kallunki of Roswell to the 5th Judicial District Court, Division VIII, in Roswell.

Kallunki has been a trial attorney with the Law Office of the Public Defender of New Mexico since 2017 and is also president of the Chaves County Bar Association. He previously worked for New Mexico Legal Aid and in private practice in Roswell.

He fills a seat left vacant by the resignation of Kea W. Riggs, who has been appointed to serve on the U.S. District Court for New Mexico.

Kallunki was born in Indiana and graduated from high school in Provo, Utah. He has a bachelor’s degree and a master’s degree in political science from the University of Alabama and earned his law degree from the Thomas Jefferson School of Law in San Diego in 2007.

He was admitted to the New Mexico bar in 2008 and has lived in Roswell since then.