Francis Frank X. Pugh Sr.

Suddenly on July 17, 2012, Francis X. Pugh, Sr., 80, died in Salisbury, MD. Francis Pugh retirement in June, 1997 from the Maryland Attorney General’s Office, Mr. Pugh was affiliated with the Baltimore Mediation Center in the full time practice of mediation. His mediation practice included family, civil, employment, business, real estate, and discrimination matters. In addition to private cases, Mr. Pugh handled mediations for the United States Postal Service, the Circuit Courts for Baltimore City, Baltimore County, and Worcester County (where he was the first court mediator and helped initiate the family mediation program), the District Court of Maryland Sheppard Pratt Hospital, the Maryland Human Relations Commission, and various state agencies.) He was also an approved mediator with the FDIC and the EEOC.

Francis Pugh graduated from Loyola College in Baltimore with an AB degree in English in 1954. After service in the U.S. Army, he was employed as an insurance claims adjuster while he attended law school in the evenings at the University of Baltimore where graduateing in 1960, magna cum laude and first in his class. Thereafter, until 1969, Mr. Pugh was engaged in the general practice of law with the firm of O’Conor and Sweeney handling corporate, business, family, labor and various civil and criminal cases.

In 1969 he was appointed as an Assistant Attorney General for the State of Maryland. After serving in the criminal, civil and special litigation divisions, he was appointed from 1974 until 1997 as principal counsel to the Department of Labor, Licensing and Regulation. That Department included approximately 20 Boards and Commissions including the Commissioner of Financial Regulation, the Insurance Commissioner, the Division of Labor & Industry, and Commissions regulating Real Estate, Home Improvement, Certified Public Accountants, Professional Engineers, Surveyors, Appraisers and most of the other non-health related professions and occupations. He supervised a staff of approximately 35 lawyers, paralegals, and administrative assistants. Mr. Pugh appeared frequently before the Maryland legislature and was twice honored by the Governor for legislative accomplishments. Since his retirement from the AG’s Office, Mr. Puge served as a private legislative lobbyist on real estate matters.

Francis Pugh drafted the legislation creating the Maryland Deposit Insurance Corporation and served as it’s counsel in the aftermath of the savings and loan crisis in Maryland in 1985. He was the person primarily involved in dealing with time share fraud and helped approximately 2500 time share purchasers acquire good title to their time shares or equivalent value. Mr. Pugh chaired two Departmental Study Groups, one dealing with resale warranties involved in the purchase of real estate and one dealing with the regulation of home builders.

In addition to his law and mediation practices, he was also active in the field of education. Mr. Pugh was a member of the Board of Trustees for the Montessori School and am presently a member of the Board of Trustees for Villa Julie College, the 3rd largest private college in Maryland. He taught for several years at the Mt. Vernon School of Law, have been a guest lecturer at the University of Maryland School of Law on mediation topics, and since 1999 have taught an upper level course in Mediation and Conflict Resolution at Villa Julie. In 1973, he was the founding director of the paralegal program at Villa Julie which was the first such program in Maryland and in the first group of programs to be approved by the American Bar Association in 1975. In 1989, he was awarded the President’s medal at Villa Julie and in 2003 Mr. Pugh was presented with the Founder’s Award.

Mr. Pugh was a member of the Speaker’s Bureau for the Maryland Mediation and Conflict Resolution Office (MACRO) and a member of its Business ADR Initiative Research Committee and its Business Alternative Dispute Resolution Committee. He also was a member of the National Association for Conflict Resolution and the Maryland Council on Dispute Resolution.

Mr. Pugh held Chair of the Maryland State Bar Committee on Laws and of a Special Committee on Legal Assistants. He was also active in church having served as chair of the Parish Council and other committees.

Mr. Pugh was married since 1956 to the former Ann Hipsley; son of the late George and Catherine Pugh (nee Feeley); devoted father of Francis X. Pugh, Jr. and his wife Joan, Daniel J. Pugh, Timothy M. Pugh, Mary Ann and Bertan Ozgun and Jeanne and Shawn McDermott; dear brother of Gertrude Horney and the late Rev. George, John, Thomas, Marie Pugh and Sister M. Virgine Pugh, M.H.S.H.; cherished grandfather of Thomas, and Ellie Pugh, Katie, Holly and Michael Ozgun, and Liam McDermott.

The family will receive friends in the Lemmon Funeral Home of Dulaney Valley, Inc., 10 W. Padonia Road (at York Road) Timonium, Maryland 21093, on Saturday and Sunday from 2 to 4 and 7 to 9PM with a Christian Wake service on Sunday evening.

A Funeral Mass will be celebrated in the St. Joseph Church (multipurpose room), 101 Church Lane, Cockeysville, MD 21030 on Monday, July 23 at 11AM.

Interment Dulaney Valley Memorial Gardens, 200 E. Padonia Road, Timonium, Maryland 21093.

Expressions of sympathy may be directed in Mr. Pugh’s memory to Mission Helpers of the Sacred Heart, 1001 W. Joppa Road, Towson, MD 21204.

A Guest Register is available at www.lemmonfuneralhome.com.