The first female member of the Alabama Supreme Court, Janie Shores, has died.

Shores, who also was once considered as a potential U.S. Supreme Court nominee, died Wednesday at her home in Baldwin County on the Alabama coast days after suffering a stroke, according to Jefferson County Circuit Judge Robert S. Vance, a godson. She was 85.

Shores worked as a legal secretary in Mobile before graduating from the University of Alabama law school, according to her official court biography. She practiced in Selma and worked on the legal staff of Liberty National Life Insurance Co. before entering politics.

Shores was first elected to the state Supreme Court in 1974 as a Democrat and served until her retirement in 1999. Then-President Bill Clinton considered Shores for appointment to the U.S. Supreme Court in 1993, but the seat went to Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg.

In an interview published several years ago by the blog of Litigation Counsel of America, a national honor society for trial attorneys, Shores recalled an upbringing that included being the daughter of teenage parents who didn't make it past grade school. A friend encouraged her to study law, she said, and the experience of working as a secretary helped with her legal education.

"I had a real advantage when I finally got to law school. I did know how to take dictation and I took down every word the professors uttered, typed them up and studied them for the exams. I think I made good grades because I often answered the questions using the professor's own words," Shores told Litigation Commentary and Review.

Shores was the first female professor at Samford University's Cumberland School of Law in suburban Birmingham. The Alabama Law Foundation awards a scholarship in Shores' honor to female law students, and Litigation Counsel of America awards the Janie L. Shores Trailblazer Award in her honor.

Vance, whose parents were close friends of Shores and her late husband, Jim Shores, said he didn't realize Shores' stature when he was young.

"I don't guess I appreciated it at the time, although I did know that she was the first woman to be elected to the court. That registered with me even back then," he said.

Shores spoke her mind, Vance said, but always with grace. "That is just a gift that some Southerners have," he said.

Vance's wife, former U.S. Attorney Joyce Vance, also told Al.com today that "As a judge, Janie believed in the rule of law and was a strict adherent to it. Her opinions were a model of legal clarity.

"Although she was once, unsuccessfully, considered for a position on the United States Supreme Court, she valued her modest Alabama roots deeply and was happiest when teaching her law clerks to become good lawyers and spending time with her daughter and grandchildren, who she adored," Joyce Vance stated.

"Justice Shores was an outstanding, well-respected Alabama jurist who blazed the trail for so many during her career," said Augusta S. Dowd, president of the Alabama State Bar.

"We honor her many achievements through the Janie L. Shores scholarship awarded annually by the Women's Section of the Alabama State Bar to support a female resident of Alabama attending an Alabama law school. The scholarship established in 2006 will continue her legacy through the careers and professional achievements of the recipients. We at the bar are saddened by her passing and mourn her loss. Our thoughts and prayers are with her daughter, Laura Shores, and the rest of the family."

A gathering for local residents will be held at St. James Episcopal Church in Fairhope, Alabama on Friday, August 11, at 1 p.m. A memorial service will also be held at a later date in Birmingham, Alabama, where she lived for over forty years, at a time and location to be announced. Survivors include her sister Verla Wilters and brother Larry Ledlow of Loxley; her daughter, Laura (and her partner Heather Quinn) and grandchildren, Abigail Scott and John Stonewall Quinn-Shores, of Washington D.C.

Shores obit provided on behalf of the family states:

Donations in her honor may be made to the University of Alabama Law School Foundation, any academic scholarship offered at the Cumberland School of Law, the campaign of Doug Jones for the United States Senate, or, for that matter, any deserving Democrat.