Jean H. Toal

Toal was elected chief justice in 2000, and served until December 31, 2015, after reaching the mandatory retirement age for judges in South Carolina. In 2013, she was the first chief justice of the Supreme Court of South Carolina not to run opposed in the election since the 1800s. She took part in a number of landmark cases. In 2000, she chose to use the internet to organize court records instead of mainframe computers, a first in South Carolina. She served as the President of the Conference of Chief Justices from July 2007 to July 2008.

Toal graduated from Agnes Scott College in 1965 and the University of South Carolina School of Law in 1968, where she was Managing Editor of the South Carolina Law Review. When she graduated, she was one of 11 women in South Carolina actively practicing the law. As a lawyer, she argued before the United States Supreme Court on behalf of the Catawba Nation. In 1975, she was elected to the South Carolina House, representing Richland County as a Democrat. She was a statehouse representative for 13 years before being elected to the South Carolina Supreme Court in 1988 and sworn in on March 17, 1988, the first woman elected to this position. She was reelected over Tom Ervin in 1996.

Jean Hoefer Toal (born August 11, 1943) is a former chief justice of the Supreme Court of South Carolina. She was the first woman and the first Roman Catholic to serve as chief justice. In 2013, she became the first chief justice on the Supreme Court of South Carolina since the 1800s to run opposed in their reelection. Toal has continued to serve in the judiciary as a senior judge since her retirement from the Supreme Court.