Mary Stenson Scriven has been selected to receive the prestigious 2026 American Inns of Court Professionalism Award for the Eleventh Circuit. Scriven is a judge on the U.S. District Court for the Middle District of Florida. She will receive the award at a special awards ceremony in Miami in May.
“Judge Scriven has always been willing to give her time to help others,” writes Circuit Judge Richard H. Martin of the Thirteenth Judicial Circuit and president of the J. Clifford Cheatwood American Inn of Court, who nominated Scriven for the award. “One story sticks out in my mind.” He recounts that at a local bar association meeting, he and Scriven listened as a victim of human trafficking described what she had experienced and her difficulties launching a legal career because of crimes committed while being trafficked. “At the end of the program,” Martin remembers, “Judge Scriven walked straight up to this young woman, handed her a business card, and said, ‘Give me a call, and I will give you a job.’”
Before being appointed to her current role by President George W. Bush in 2008, Scriven had served as a magistrate judge for the U.S. District Court for the Middle District of Florida since 1997. She has served on the Board of the Federal Judges Association since 2018.
Earlier in Scriven’s career, she was a shareholder with Carlton, Fields, Ward, Emmanuel, Smith & Cutler PA, where she spent a decade practicing in the corporate litigation and trade regulation department. From 1996 to 1997, she was an associate professor of law at Stetson University College of Law, which awarded her an honorary doctor of law degree in 2006.
Scriven is a past president of the Cheatwood Inn and served on the national American Inns of Court Board of Trustees. She is the immediate past chair of the Eleventh Circuit Judicial Council’s Pattern Jury Instruction Committee. She is also active in her wider community. For example, she served as chair of The Spring of Tampa Bay, a shelter for battered spouses and their children.
Scriven earned a cum laude undergraduate degree in political science from Duke University in 1983. She earned a law degree with high honors from Florida State University College of Law in 1987.
The American Inns of Court, headquartered in Alexandria, Virginia, inspires the legal community to advance the rule of law by achieving the highest level of professionalism through example, education, and mentoring. The organization’s membership includes nearly 30,000 federal, state, and local judges; lawyers; law professors; and law students in 350 chapters nationwide. More information is available at www.innsofcourt.org.
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