Jane Matilda Bolin was born on April 11th, 1908. She was the first Black woman to graduate from Yale Law School, the first to join the New York City Bar Association, and the first to join the New York City Law Department. She was also the first Black woman to serve as a New York City judge in the United States in 1939. She lived in Poughkeepsie , New York. She was the youngest of four children. Her father Gaius C. Bolin was also a lawyer. Saldy her mother died when Bolin was only eight years old. Her name was Matilda Ingram Emery. Her parents were an interacial couple so her and her family experienced racism, sometimes they were denied service.  She was influenced by different articles and pictures of extrajudicial hanging of black southerners. Bolin was also an active member of the Smith Metropolitan AME Zion Church.

After graduating from high school and she had some trouble trying to get into colleges. Some colleges didn’t accept Black students. At 16, she attended Wellesley College in Massachusetts. She was one of two Black freshmen. They were both excluded from the white students who attend the college and they both decided to live off campus together. As she continued to study at Wellesley College, a career adviser told Bolin not to apply at Yale Law School because of her race and gender. However, after she graduated from Wellesely in 1928 and was in the top 20 of her class, she was accepted to Yale Law school. Bolin was the only Black woman there, and was the only one to receive a Law degree in 1931. She passed the New York state bar examination in 1932, when she met her husband in 1932.

For twenty years, she served as a judge and retired at the age of 70. She was a legal advisor to the National Council of Negro Women.  She served on the boards of the NAACP, the National Urban League  and the Child Welfare League.  She volunteered to be a reading instructor after retiring and served on the New York State Board of Regents looking over disciplinary cases. She died on January 8, 2007.