Margaret B. Seymour

Margaret B. Seymour, a retired U.S. District Judge (District of South Carolina, 1998–2022), was the first African American woman federal judge and chief federal judge in South Carolina. She served as a U.S. Magistrate Judge (1996–1998) before her district court appointment.

Over 26 years, Judge Seymour presided over complex securities, contract, class action, commercial, banking, bankruptcy, employment, discrimination, and environmental cases, as well as criminal matters like drug conspiracies, white-collar crime, and Ponzi schemes. She sat by designation on the Fourth Circuit and participated in two three-judge-panel redistricting cases. She served twice on the Judicial Conference Committee on the Administration of the Bankruptcy System.

Before the bench, Seymour was an assistant U.S. Attorney for South Carolina, twice interim U.S. Attorney, and worked as an equal opportunity specialist for the U.S. Department of Health, Education, and Welfare. She was an attorney for the U.S. Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights and the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission.

She received the National Bar Association Leadership Award, Richland County Bar Association Civility Award, and South Carolina Lawyers Weekly 2024 Influential Women in Law. She is a member of the American Bar Foundation, American Law Institute, and American Arbitration Association.

Seymour earned a B.A. from Howard University (1969) and a J.D. from American University, Washington College of Law (1977).

American University Washington College of Law

J.D. (1977)

1977

South Carolina Bar  # 0011271

Member

Current

Pennsylvania

Disciplinary Board of the Supreme Court of Pennsylvania

ID Number: 029612

South Carolina

South Carolina Bar

ID Number: 0011271