The Hon. Thelma Surgeon is a judge for the Robeson County District Court in the 16B Judicial District of North Carolina. She was appointed to the bench by Governor Roy Cooper in 2021, filling the vacancy created by the retirement of the Hon. Judith Milsap Daniels.
Prior to her appointment, Surgeon managed her own private practice, the Surgeon Law Firm, PLLC, and was a Guardian ad Litem attorney advocate. Before establishing her law firm, she became an assistant public defender in Robeson County in 1989 and was a managing attorney at Lumbee River Legal Services.
Surgeon received a B.A. from Johnson C. Smith University. She then completed a J.D. at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill School of Law in 1980.
Surgeon was a Reginald Heber Smith Community Fellow at Legal Aid in Pembroke and served as a commissioner on the North Carolina Inquiry Commission.
Named Robeson County’s Entrepreneur of the Year, she also owned and operated ComForcare Home Care Services and Elite Adult Day Health Care Services. Surgeon was later presented the Order of the Long Leaf Pine from Governor Cooper in 2018, considered North Carolina’s highest honor.
She is registered as a Democrat.