Jane Glenn

1956-2007

Before Martin Clark became the circuit court judge for Patrick County, he often found himself representing a plaintiff in a civil case across from defense attorney Jane Glenn.

"We were constantly in court against each other, and she beat me like a rented mule," Clark said Tuesday. Despite their adversarial relationship in court, "she was a good lawyer, she was a pleasure to deal with, and she was completely and absolutely honest."

Glenn was a lawyer's lawyer, someone other Roanoke Valley attorneys came to for advice or even for representation. She earned a reputation as an efficient, no-nonsense lawyer who could cut to the meat of a case and win big in courtroom battles -- even as she waged a private battle with breast cancer for more than a decade.

"Jane was such a fighter," U.S. District Court Judge Glen Conrad said. "She never let it get her down. She seemed to put it in the back of her mind, even on days when I know she wasn't feeling well."

Glenn, 50, finally succumbed to cancer Monday night.

"She was cut down in the prime of her career," Roanoke lawyer John Fishwick said. "Jane had an uncanny ability to represent both the little guy and the larger insurance companies. ... Judges and juries gravitated to her."

Born in Elkton and raised in New Jersey, Glenn excelled at academics.

Her father, Paul Glenn, described his decision to teach his daughter himself for a year before she entered kindergarten. "By the end of the year, she was reading The New York Times," he said.

She earned her law degree at the University of Richmond and went to work as a law clerk for U.S. District Court Judge Jackson Kiser, who described her Tuesday as "smart as a whip."

She joined the firm Gentry, Locke, Rakes & Moore in 1984 and became a partner in Fishwick's firm in 1991. That firm evolved to become Glenn, Robinson & Cathey.

She usually served as a defense attorney for insurance companies. Lawyers knew her courtroom reputation well. "You wouldn't want to have her on the other side of the case," Fishwick said.

"She was a teaching lawyer. She taught the jury that her position was the only logical position," Roanoke Circuit Court Judge Clifford Weckstein said. "She had both a razor-sharp mind and a razor-sharp wit." Because her humorous insights could be dry and deadpan, "you had to know her sometimes to know the wit."

Under her calm exterior, she had a mind that raced, Weckstein said.

"Sometimes people thought she had a crusty exterior, but inside she just had a heart as big as all outdoors," Roanoke lawyer Phillip Anderson said.

In 1996 the Roanoke Bar Association endorsed Glenn for a judgeship in Roanoke Circuit Court. She didn't get the position, but her colleagues are certain she would have handled it well.

"The bottom line that I would give you about Jane is she was always the smartest person in the room," Clark said.

She is survived by her parents and two brothers.