The NCWBA lost a dear friend on July 27, 2020 with the passing of Martha Jane Patton of Birmingham, Alabama. Martha Jane had first been diagnosed with cancer in 2003, and battled it successfully for  many years before her final illness.  Martha Jane served as a board member of the NCWBA from 1996 until 2002. Joining the NCWBA board was a natural step for someone who loved to travel and had been a founding mother of both the Women's Section of the Alabama State Bar and the Women Lawyers' Section of the Birmingham Bar Association. Former NCWBA president Nancy Newman of San Francisco remembers her as a tireless advocate for equality and justice, and an inspiring sister in struggle, full of insight, stories, and possessing a wry sense of humor. That unique combination of qualities made her a treasured board member.

In pre-COVID days, NCWBA board members were asked to travel for board meetings three times a year. Former NCWBA president Mary Wolverton of Milwaukee, Wisconsin remembers that Martha Jane embraced what each city had to offer. "She reminded us to appreciate travel rather than seeing it as a burden." Martha Jane was also a gracious and knowledgeable tour guide when board members came to Birmingham. Past NCWBA president Ellen Kearns of Boston recalls a visit to Birmingham she took with her niece about 20 years ago. Martha Jane took them to the Birmingham Civil Rights Institute, and Birmingham's Bethel Baptist Church, where Fred Shuttlesworth, one of the founders of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, served as pastor from 1953 to 1961. Lee Baldwin of Dallas, Texas, a long-time NCWBA board member, remembers staying at Martha Jane's home in 2006. Martha Jane took her to Montgomery to tour many locations made famous by the civil rights marches and bus boycotts. She learned from Martha Jane that she had personally witnessed attacks by police dogs and fire hoses shooting water at demonstrators during civil rights protests. Judge Caryl Privett, who succeeded Martha Jane as a board member of the NCWBA, took a break from her work to accompany Lee and Martha Jane to the courtroom where one of the instigators of the 16th Street Baptist Church bombing had been tried.

Martha Jane Patton was born in Decatur, Alabama in 1946. While serving as editor of her high school newspaper, she wrote about civil rights topics, including the Birmingham 16th Street Baptist Church bombing, which occurred during her senior year. According to Martha Jane, her writings reflected the minority viewpoint in Decatur, and "I felt my unpopularity intensely." She received a full scholarship to attend Birmingham-Southern College. After graduation in 1968, she worked in Tuscaloosa for four years at the Selma Inter-Religious Project, an organization dedicated to advancing civil rights. Martha Jane's work gave her a front-row seat in such history-making occasions as the Greene County special election of 1969, ordered as a result of a successful federal lawsuit, which gave the county with a predominantly Black population the first Black county commissioners and two additional Black members of the school board, beginning a generational shift in political power.

While in Tuscaloosa, Martha Jane also became a founder of the Women's Political Caucus, and through that group became acquainted with women engaged in a variety of professions, including peers who were going to law school. She credited Marjorie Fine Knowles, the first female professor at the University of Alabama's law school, with encouraging her to become a lawyer. Martha Jane enrolled in the Cumberland School of Law at Samford University, where she became fast friends with the four other women who were older than the typical law students. After graduation in 1978, she entered private practice. In 1998 she became executive director of the Legal Aid Society of the Birmingham Bar Association, a position she held until her retirement in May 2016.

In retirement, Martha Jane had more time to travel, including taking a particularly memorable trip to Great Britain. She'd planned a trip to Italy this fall, but it was cancelled in the spring because of the pandemic. She was a pillar of her church, St. Andrew's Episcopal, where she sang in the choir. She remained active on social media almost until the very end. Martha Jane received awards and honors from many groups, including the National Alliance Against Racist & Political Repression, the Birmingham-Southern College, Birmingham Bar Association and the Alabama Bar Association, which in 2017 presented her with the Maud McLure Kelly Award, which is named for the first woman to practice law in Alabama.

Martha Jane's beloved husband, Lynn Burton Daniel, died of leukemia in 2015. She is survived by their sons Jonathan and Will. If you would like to give a gift in Martha Jane's memory, you may make a donation to the Alabama Law Foundation's Janie Shores Scholarship Fund, which honors Judge Janie Shores, the first woman to serve on the Alabama Supreme Court.