On Thursday, August 21, 2014, Chief Justice Jean Hoefer Toal addressed members of South Carolina's Judiciary at the Annual Judicial Conference. Justice Toal welcomed new Court of Appeals Judge, Stephanie Pendarvis McDonald; new circuit court judges, R. Scott Sprouse and Daniel Dewitt Hall; and new family court judges, Coreen B. Khoury, William Gregory Seigler, Tarita A. Dunbar, Melissa Johnson Emery and Thomas H. White, IV.

Justice Toal reviewed the performance of individual circuits in meeting benchmarks for family court, common pleas and general sessions. She also discussed the expansion of South Carolina's Business Courts. Justice Toal highlighted recent changes to the General Sessions Docket procedure and efforts underway to deal with the backlog of cases in the appellate courts.She announced a pilot program for digital court recording in the trial courts.

Justice Toal's update on technology for the South Carolina courts included milestones for the appellate court case management system. She announced that beginning in September, 2014, the Supreme Court, in partnership with SCETV, will begin live streaming of oral arguments via the internet. Oral argument video recordings will be archived for later viewing on the SCJD website. Toal highlighted the Judicial Department's continued focus on data security including an on-going security awareness program for all judicial department employees. Justice Toal provided an update on the status of the E-Filing implementation of Common Pleas cases with pilot implementations in three counties - Greenville, Clarendon and Charleston - in 2015.

A copy of her PowerPoint presentation is available in PDF format below.