Jane Matilda Bolin

Jane Matilda Bolin was the first Black woman to graduate from Yale Law School, and was also the first Black woman in the United States to become a judge. She was born in Poughkeepsie, New York in 1908 to Matilda Ingram Emery and attorney Gaius C. Bolin. She graduated from Wellesley College in 1928, then entered Yale Law School, graduating in 1931.

After graduation, she worked with her father’s legal practice in Poughkeepsie for a few years. In 1933, she married fellow attorney Ralph E. Mizelle and moved to New York City, where they practiced law together. Ralph Mizelle died in 1943. Bolin later married minister Walter P. Offutt, Jr.

Bolin ran for a New York state assembly seat in 1936. In 1939, she was appointed as a judge in the Family Court of New York, where she served for 40 years. She was an advocate for the rights of children and for education, civil rights, and the racial integration of public services for children and families.

The Yale Law School Association awarded her its Medal of Merit in 1994. A portrait of Bolin hangs in the Yale Law School.

Bolin died in 2007 at age 98.