Magdeline D. Coleman L'81
Chief Judge Magdeline D. Coleman is a United States Bankruptcy Judge for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania. Judge Coleman was appointed to the court on April 12, 2010, and her term will expire on April 11, 2024.
Judge Coleman was born and raised in Church Point, La., and was the eldest of 12 children. She attended segregated Catholic schools until high school and graduated from Church Point High School at the age of 16. She went on to attend Chestnut Hill College on a full scholarship with a double major in Economics and Political science, and earned her Juris Doctor from the University of Pennsylvania in 1981.
Judge Coleman worked for a succession of solo practitioners before joining Atkinson & Archie, the Philadelphia firm started by Nolan Atkinson and Bob Archie. She later took a position doing bankruptcy work with the regional office of the Department of Housing and Urban Development, and then accepted a clerkship with Judge David Scholl, a former judge in the Bankruptcy Court. At the end of the clerkship, Judge Coleman worked in private practice at Sagot, Jennings & Sigmund and then at Buchanan Ingersoll doing bankruptcy and creditors’ rights work in Pennsylvania, New York, and Delaware, until she was appointed to the federal bench.
Biography for Judge Magdeline D. Coleman was taken from: “10 Questions for Judge Magdeline D. Coleman,” interview by Antoinette R. Stone, Philadelphia Bar Association.