After graduating with a BCL from McGill in 1957, he was called to the bar in 1958 and entered private practice.
In 1983 he became a judge of the Federal Court of Canada, Appeal Division and retired in 2008.
Hugessen's other appointments have included the Administrative Tribunal of the International Labour Organization and the Supreme Court of the North-West Territories.
A visually-disabled person, he served as the chair of the federal Task Force on Access to Information for Print-Disabled Canadians.
In 2009, as a result of his outstanding judicial career and long term service to McGill's Faculty of Law, Hugessen was given the F.R.