GSBA Director - Margaret Leggett Tarver, Esq.

Margaret Leggett Tarver, a Solo Practitioner, began her legal career in 1982 after graduating from Seton Hall University School of Law. Prior to studying law, Ms. Tarver, earned a B.A. degree in Biology from Talladega College, Talladega, Alabama and a M. S. degree in Biochemistry from Howard University, Washington, D.C.

After graduating from Howard, she worked as a Research Scientist in the Biochemistry Department of Howard's Medical School, as a Science Consultant in the D. C. Public School system, as a Science Instructor at the Technical Training Project, Newark, N.J. and at Project Mercury, State University of New York at Albany.

Later, and for 26 years thereafter, she worked as a Forensic Scientist for the New Jersey State Police, serving as Technical Director at three of the four State laboratories and retired as the Laboratory Director at the South Regional Laboratory in Hammonton, NJ.

Ms. Tarver maintains a general solo practice in Willingboro, NJ with emphasis on Estate Planning and Administration and Residential Real Estate Transactions. She also is an Arbitrator for the NASD Dispute Resolution, Inc. (National Association of Securities Dealers) and an Adjunct Assistant Professor at the University of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey, School of Health Related Professions, where she teaches Forensic Identity Testing in the Molecular Diagnostics Course.

Ms. Tarver is the immediate past President of the Association of Black Women Lawyers of New Jersey, Inc., Vice President of the Garden State Bar Association, Secretary of the Jurisprudence Section of the American Academy of Forensic Sciences, where she has achieved the status of Fellow, holds appointments to the Diversity and Judicial Administration Sections of the New Jersey State Bar Association where she also served as Co-Chair of the By-Laws Committee. Additionally, she has served on the New Jersey Supreme Court Committee of Minority Concerns. Ms. Tarver is also a member of the National Bar Association, the American Bar Association and the Burlington County and Pennsylvania Bar Associations.

Ms. Tarver's biography appears in Who's Who of American Women, Who's Who in the East, Who's Who in American Law and Who's Who in America.