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Judge Glenda Hatchett
Former Juvenile Court Judge & Star of Judge Hatchett
Judge Glenda Hatchett
Former Juvenile Court Judge & Star of Judge Hatchett
Biography
A graduate of Mt. Holyoke College and Emory University School of Law, where she was an Earl Warren Scholar, Hatchett completed a prestigious federal clerkship in the United States District Court, Northern District of Georgia. She then spent nearly 10 years at Delta Air Lines, where she was the airline’s highest-ranking woman of color worldwide. As Senior Attorney, she represented Delta Air Lines in labor/personnel, and antitrust litigation and commercial acquisitions. As Public Relations Manager, she supervised global crisis management and handled media relations for 50 U.S. cities as well as all of Europe and Asia.
Currently, Hatchett is Founder of a national law firm, The Hatchett Firm PC, based in Atlanta, Georgia. The firm specializes in catastrophic injuries, wrongful deaths, tractor trailer accidents, premises liability, catastrophic police misconduct cases and contract negotiations.
She is a member of both the Georgia Bar and the Bar of the District of Columbia. Hatchett has served on the Boards of three Fortune 500 companies – Hospital Corporation of America, Inc. (HCA), The Gap Inc. and ServiceMaster Company.
While on the Board of Directors of HCA, she was Chair of the Ethics, Compliance and Quality of Care Committee. She was also a member of the HCA board’s Nominating and Corporate Governance Committee. Hatchett was a member of the five-person special board committee that negotiated HCA’s $32.7 billion leveraged buyout paving the way for the nation's largest forprofit hospital chain to go private. At the time, the buyout was the largest leveraged buyout in US corporate history.
While a Board Director for The Gap Inc., Hatchett served on the Governance, Nominating and Social Responsibility Committee and the Compensation and Management Development Committee.
Hatchett left Delta Air Lines to accept an appointment as Chief Presiding Judge of the Fulton County (Atlanta, Georgia) Juvenile Court—becoming the first African-American Chief Presiding Judge of a state court in Georgia and head of one of the largest juvenile court systems in the country.
Hatchett was a member of the National Football League’s Atlanta Falcons’ Board of Advisors and served as a consultant to the National Basketball Association on pressing legal and social issues.
With over 30 years of experience as a judge, corporate lawyer, and board member of corporate and nonprofit organizations, Hatchett has established a legacy of excellence.
Hatchett is the recipient of numerous awards including the Roscoe Pound Award for outstanding work in Criminal Justice, NAACP’s Thurgood Marshall Award and she has been recognized as one of the “100 Best and Brightest Women in Corporate America” by Ebony magazine. The State Bar of Georgia honored her with the Social Justice Advocacy and Action Award; she was only the fourth person to ever receive this award. She was named Distinguished Alumna at Mt. Holyoke College, which later granted her an honorary degree. Her other alma mater, Emory University Law School, named her Outstanding Alumni of the Year. Emory University also presented her with the highest award given to university alumni, the Emory Medal.
Hatchett has presented leadership sessions for various companies including PepsiCo, Procter & Gamble, Georgia-Pacific, Wal-Mart and HCA. Additionally, she frequently lecturers throughout the country, and has keynoted several national conferences including: Office Depot’s Success Strategies for Businesswomen Conference, Colgate Palmolive’s Multicultural Summit, the Diversity Conference in the U.S. Senate, the Minority Employers’ Conference at Newell Rubbermaid, Microsoft’s Education Summit, AT&T’s Diversity Summit, Home Depot’s Women’s History Speaker’s Series and Black Enterprise’s Entrepreneurs Conference. She has also moderated several forums including the CEO Forum on Diversity Leadership and Wells Fargo’s Forum on the Economic Impact on Colleges and Universities. Hatchett served as a guest faculty member lecturing on Corporate Ethics at the University of Vanderbilt’s Directors College, presented by the Law School and the Owen Graduate School of Management.
Hatchett presides over the two-time Emmy nominated nationally syndicated show, Judge Hatchett, now in its 20th season (Sony Pictures Television). Judge Hatchett won a Prism Award for Best Unscripted Non-Fiction Series. She is also the author of the National Best Sellers, Say What You Mean and Mean What You Say and Dare to Take Charge. Most recently, Hatchett has returned to TV in her new television court series, The Verdict. She presides over the series as a follow-up to Sony TV’s long-running Judge Hatchett.
Hatchett has provided legal commentary on CNN, HLN, MSNBC, FOX News, The Today Show and Court TV, in addition, was a guest host for The View.
Hatchett has consistently shown her commitment to community development through her service on various nonprofit boards including: the National Board of Governors of the Boys and Girl Club of America; the Leadership Circle for the After School Alliance and the Advisory Board for the Women’s Resource Center at Spelman College and the Board of Advisors for PlayPumps International. Presently, Hatchett serves as the national spokesperson for CASA (Court Appointed Special Advocates), a non-profit volunteer organization that trains volunteers to represent abused and neglected children and is the recipient of their President’s Award.
Speaker Videos
Drive to Success: Achieving Your Dreams
Concern, Consistency, Caring for Our Children
Pennsylvania Conference for Women
Juvenile Justice
Speech Topics
A Promise to Keep
Judge Glenda Hatchett was Georgia's first African-American chief presiding judge of a state court, and the department head of one of the largest juvenile court systems in the country.
Her prayer, "God, please give me the strength to move my energy from grieving for the children you put before me to helping them," fortifies her daily. Judge Hatchett has had to contend with the grim reality behind these somber statistics: in the past ten years the violent crime rate for those under 18 has grown by more than 60%, while the number of child abuse and neglect cases has doubled. To battle the social ills behind these numbers – poverty, single parent households and families entrenched in a culture of substance abuse – Judge Hatchett has gone beyond her responsibilities as a jurist. She has created many innovative programs to steer young people from troubled lives.
Nationally recognized as an authority on juvenile and social issues and outspoken advocate for children everywhere, Judge Hatchett speaks passionately on what we all need to do to save this and future generations. Her presentations remind us that we need to protect our youth to insure our future.
Dare to Take Charge: How to Live & Lead with Purpose
With a charismatic and outspoken demeanor cultivated on Judge Hatchett, Judge Glenda Hatchett is excited to share with audiences the life lessons she’s learned and witnessed from years on the bench.
These include:
- What it means to be daring and intentional when seeking your ultimate objectives.
- How to bridge the dream gap and more closely align your daily activities with your goals.
- Why pursuing hope is a powerful choice—and how to do it.
- The dangers of a rigid life plan, and how to recalculate objectives when necessary.
- The importance of guilt and the surprising way you can use it to your advantage.
- How to intentionally incorporate your passion into your actions and decision-making.
- Why the past is no prison and how to claim healing so you can overcome it.
- How to stop destructive patterns and make short-term sacrifices to meet long-term goals.
- How to transform the opportunity of every day into the opportunity of a lifetime.
The Corporate Challenge to Lead & Serve
Corporate America, its challenges and responsibility in reshaping this nation… Judge Hatchett served for many years as in-house counsel for a leading global airline and has served on 3 Fortune 200 boards of directors and is uniquely situated to address this issue of leadership. Corporate leadership demands an enormous amount of responsibility. Judge Hatchett will outline 7 principles of leadership including the fact that leaders must first seek to serve, they cannot lead where they are not willing to go and they must lead with integrity, passion and compassion. Additionally recognizing that corporations are challenged to support, through its philanthropic activities, the community it seeks to serve.
Motivating and Inspiring the Workforce to Expect & Work Toward Greatness
An organization is only as great as its people. Executives are charged with designing the blueprint for a purposeful workplace. How do you make this happen in the midst of every day demands and profit driving results? Judge Hatchett reflects on her experience as a Corporate Executive, a Corporate Board Member and Chief Judge of the largest Juvenile Court System in the Southeastern United States. Aligning purpose and passion in the workplace and in your own leadership portfolio can be the formula for great success!
Defining & Maintaining Your Leadership Brand
Determining the type of leader you are and want to be can ultimately impact the workforce you are able to attract and support. Great people want to work for and be around great leaders. This is true in the workplace as well as in your personal life. Judge Hatchett discusses key strategies for understanding who you are as a leader and as a human being and how to maintain your principles and values in an ever changing society.
Challenge of the Balance
The responsibilities of work and family can be extremely demanding and may often lead to conflicting values and priorities. Judge Hatchett understands these challenges first hand as a single mother of sons. Understanding that being out of balance creates problems in all aspects of one’s life, she discusses strategies and how to maintain equilibrium in an ever-evolving, complex work environment.
Finding Your Purposeful Path: Dare to Take Charge
A challenge to define your purpose and passion. How do you transform your dreams into reality? Judge Hatchett conducts a discussion about life’s journeys – how do you find your life’s purpose and how do you connect that purpose with a meaningful legacy. What are you doing now that will live beyond your lifetime? Judge Hatchett will help you form a blueprint for a purposeful life, by setting goals, reaching possibilities beyond anything one could imagine and stressing that your past does not have to dictate your future. You control what is next and possible in your life. She will conduct a conversation about the potential range of the magnificent path awaiting you.
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