Oil on canvas, 24 x 20 in., circa 1930 by S. Fieldman
Location: Hearing Room A 

Born January 23, 1851 in Bedford County, Virginia.
Died April 30, 1928 in Richmond, Virginia.

Appointed February 27, 1917 by Governor Henry Carter Stuart to fill the vacancy created by the resignation of George Moffett Harrison and began his service on March 22, 1917. Elected by the General Assembly on January 16, 1918 to a 12-year term beginning February 1, 1919. Service terminated by resignation.

Education:
Washington College, B.A., 1870
University of Virginia, LL.B., 1872

Professional career:
Private practice of law in Bedford, Virginia, 1872-1899.
Court reporter, Supreme Court of Virginia, 1895-1916.
Professor of law, Washington and Lee University, 1899-1917 (dean, 1903-1917).
Author, Notes on the Property Rights of Married Women in Virginia (1893).
Author, Pleading and practice in actions at common law (1913).

Photographic portraits, Washington & Lee University Library, from original glass plate negatives housed at the Virginia Museum of History and Culture.

Sources:
Appointed, Burks Appointed to Supreme Bench, Richmond Times-Dispatch (Richmond,Va.), February 28, 1917, retrieved on March 14, 2014; qualified, 120 Va., iii; elected, Journal of the Senate of Virginia, 1918 Session, 66; resignation and death, 150 Va., iii; birth, education, and career, Charles V. Laughlin, “Martin Parks Burks, Washington and Lee University, 1917,” in W. Hamilton Bryson, Legal Education in Virginia, 1779-1979 (Charlottesville: University Press of Virginia, 1982), 117-126; and Peter Wallenstein, “Martin Parks Burks (1851-1928),” in Kneebone and Bearrs, Dictionary of Virginia Biography (Richmond, Va.: Library of Virginia, 1998), v. 2, 413; portrait, Library of Virginia catalog.