Boyce Ficklen Martin Jr. - Early Career

Early Career

Born in Boston, Massachusetts, Martin received an A.B. from Davidson College in 1957. After graduating, he first worked in banking. Later, while serving in the U.S. Army Reserve, he went to the University of Virginia School of Law and received his law degree in 1963. Immediately after graduation he served as a law clerk to Shackelford Miller, then Chief Judge of the Sixth Circuit – a position he would later hold himself. In 1964 and 1965, Martin served first as an assistant United States Attorney, and then as the United States Attorney for the Western District of Kentucky. He left for private practice in Louisville, Kentucky for a short time, but was soon appointed by the Governor of Kentucky to fill a vacancy on the Jefferson Circuit Court in early 1974. In the November 1974 elections he was endorsed by the Louisville Courier-Journal which praised him for his “innate fairness, temperament, experience, and training necessary to become an outstanding circuit judge.”. He won by a landslide.