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Chief Justice Toal Receives Achievement Award |
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 Chief Justice Jean Hoefer Toal, a 1968 graduate of the USC School of
Law, is one of five recipients of the 2004 Margaret Brent Women
Lawyers of Achievement Award, given annually by the American Bar
Association’s Commission on Women in the Profession. The award,
named after the first woman lawyer in the United States, honors
women lawyers who have achieved professional excellence in their
field and have actively advanced the status of women within the
legal community.
Chief Justice Toal received the award on Aug. 8, 2004, during the
American Bar Association’s Annual Meeting in Atlanta, Ga. She joins
a highly prestigious group of women lawyers who have received the
Margaret Brent Award since its inception in 1991, including U.S.
Supreme Court Justices Sandra Day O’Connor and Ruth Bader Ginsburg,
former U.S. Representatives Barbara Jordan (D-Texas) and Patricia
Schroeder (D-Colo.), former U.S. Attorney General Janet Reno, and
Professor Anita Hill.
“I am elated and honored that I will be included in such a
distinguished cadre of women lawyers,” Chief Justice Toal said. “I
am certainly personally gratified to be recognized for my own
professional achievement, but more important, I rejoice in the
statement this award makes for the status that women lawyers have
achieved in this state.”
Toal began to set the standards for her colleagues in the law in
South Carolina very early in her career. She was one of four women
in her class at the University of South Carolina School of Law and
became managing editor of the South Carolina Law Review in her
third year. In 1975, Toal was elected to the S.C. House of
Representatives, where she became the first woman chair of a house
subcommittee, the Constitutional Laws Subcommittee, and the first
woman chair of a standing house committee, the House Rules
Committee.
Toal was elected to the South Carolina Supreme Court in 1988,
becoming the first woman to serve on the court. In 2000, she became
the first woman to occupy the position of chief justice of the S.C.
Supreme Court, a position to which she has been re-elected for
another 10-year term.
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Judge Kaye G. Hearn Honored |
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The South Carolina Trial Lawyers Association (SCTLA) honored School
of Law alumna Judge Kaye G. Hearn on Aug. 7, 2004. She was named the
2004 SCTLA Portrait Honoree and presented with an oil portrait on
behalf of participating members of the South Carolina Bar. The
presentation was part of the SCTLA’s annual convention at the Westin
Resort on Hilton Head Island.
Judge Hearn, Class of 1977, has served as a member of the South
Carolina Court of Appeals since her election in March 1995 and was
elected chief judge of the court in June 1999. She is
president-elect of the Council of Chief Judges of Courts of Appeal (CCJCA).
The CCJCA is a nationwide network of chief judges of intermediate
state courts. The network allows chief judges to work together to
improve the administration of justice, rules of procedure, and the
operation of intermediate courts of appeal.
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