For Release
February 15, 2001

S.C. Supreme Court Chief Justice gives address

          South Carolina Supreme Court Justice Jean Hoefer Toal will give a public address at The Citadel on February 27, 2001 at 8:00 p.m. in Bond Hall Auditorium (room 165). There is no charge to attend.

          Jean Hoefer Toal is the chief justice of the South Carolina Supreme Court and the first and only woman to serve as a justice of that court. She received a bachelor of arts degree in philosophy in 1965 from Agnes Scott College and in 1968 she received a juris doctorate from the University of South Carolina and went on to practice law with the Haynsworth Law Firm in Greenville where she would practice until 1970. In 1970, she moved to Columbia to begin work for Belser, Belser, Baker & Barwick where she would become a partner in 1974. In 1975, she was elected to the South Carolina House of Representatives from Richland County where she would serve for thirteen years. She was the first woman in South Carolina to chair a standing committee of the House of Representatives and she served as chairman of the House Rules Committee and chairman of the Constitutional Laws Subcommittee of the House Judiciary Committee.