Glenda Hatchett c. 1951–

Judge

Judge Glenda Hatchett was Georgia’s first African-American chief presiding justice of a state court and the department head of one of the largest juvenile court systems in the country. For more than eight years, she was a tough-but-beloved chief judge in Atlanta’s Fulton County Juvenile Court system. When she took the bench on Judge Hatchett, her own courtroom television show, she set herself apart by showing more class and compassion than her primetime judicial counterparts.

Discovered “Passion for Litigation”

Hatchett was born c. 1951 and grew up in a low-income Atlanta neighborhood. Her mother, a teacher, was resourceful with the family’s limited resources and her father “instilled in her the feeling that there was nothing in the world she couldn’t do,” according to Black Living online. Hatchett completed her undergraduate degree at Mount Holyoke College and graduated from Emory University School of Law in 1977. “I went to law school to expand my options, but never really expected to be a lawyer,” Hatchett is quoted as saying in her online biography, found at www.judge-hatchett.com. “While I was there, I discovered a passion for litigation.” Mount Holyoke later named her Distinguished Alumni and awarded her an honorary degree, and Emory University Law School named her Outstanding Alumni of the Year and honored her with the Emory Medal, Emory’s highest alumni award.

After completing a coveted clerkship in the U.S. Federal Courts, Hatchett spent almost a decade working for Delta Air Lines as the company’s highest-ranking African-American woman, first in the legal department and later in public relations. As a senior attorney for the airline, she represented Delta in federal courts, particularly in labor and anti-trust cases, participated in merger negotiations, and was involved in creating partnership between Delta Air Lines and Disney. After seven years in the legal department, Hatchett was promoted by Delta’s chairman to manager of public relations, where she handled global crisis management and media relations for Europe, Asia, and fifty U.S. cities. While at Delta, Hatchett was named one of the 100 Best and Brightest Women in Corporate America by Ebony Magazine. She later applied her corporate expertise by serving on the Board of Directors of GAP, Inc., ServiceMaster, and Columbia/HCA.

At a Glance…

Born c. 1951; divorced; children: Charles and Christopher. Education: Mount Holyoke College; Emory University Law School, 1977.

Career: Delta Air Lines, counsel, c. 1981–90; Fulton County Juvenile Court, chief judge, 1990–99; television show judge, Judge Hatchett, 1999-.

Member: Board member: the GAP, Inc.; ServiceMaster; and Columbia/HCA.

Awards: Named Distinguished Alumni and awarded honorary degree, Mount Holyoke College; named Outstanding Alumni of the Year and awarded Emory Medal, Emory University Law School; named one of the 100 Best and Brightest Women in Corporate America, Ebony Magazine; Outstanding Jurist of the Year, Atlanta affiliate of the National Bar Association; Roscoe Pound Award, National Council on Crime and Delinquency; Outstanding Community Service Award, Spelman College; Thurgood Marshall Award, NAACP.

Addresses: Website— http://www.judgehatchett.com.

Hatchett left Delta when she was appointed judge of the Fulton County Juvenile Court. She became Georgia’s first African-American chief judge of a state court, and was head of one of the nation’s biggest juvenile court systems. Hatchett immediately demonstrated a unique and innovative approach to her work, and was commended for “revolutionizing the Fulton County Juvenile Court System with public and private partnership initiatives,” according to Black Living online. After only a year on the bench, she was selected by the local chapter of the National Bar Association affiliate as Outstanding Jurist of the Year. She also received the Roscoe Pound Award, the National Council on Crime and Delinquency’s highest recognition for outstanding work in criminal justice. She also received Spelman College’s Outstanding Community Service Award and the NAACP’s Thurgood Marshall Award.

An Activist for Children

Hatchett’s interests extended beyond the bench. As an activist, she developed partnerships with organizations such as the Boys’ and Girls’ Clubs and the Urban League to provide support to children and families after they have left her courtroom. She called on such Atlanta groups as the Junior League to create the Court Appointed Special Advocates and Guardian Ad Litem programs for children living in group homes or in foster care. As a juvenile court judge, Hatchett did not need statistics to tell her that truancy is the prime indication for future criminal activity. In 1990 Hatchett helped found the Truancy Project with the help of the Atlanta Bar Association and Alston & Bird, one of Atlanta’s largest law firms. Recognized as an expert on social and juvenile issues, Hatchett has appeared on such television programs as Night line, Good Morning America, MacNeil/Lehrer, and on CNN.

In 1998 Hatchett made news when she went head-to-head with then-Governor Zell Miller. Hatchett refused to vacate the Fulton County juvenile court and move to a temporary facility until a new building was completed. She argued that the setup would create unreasonable hardships for her fellow judges, the 22,000 cases, and the 15,000 troubled young people who passed through an already difficult court system. Though she had been reappointed to her third four-year term by the state Supreme Court, Hatchett resigned several months after the incident. In a statement, according to the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, Chief Superior Court Judge Thelma Wyatt Cummings Moore said Hatchett “has been a strong yet compassionate voice for children in the Fulton County Justice system. She will be missed.”

Though some could speculate that she stepped down from the Fulton bench to follow the allure of the television lights, the truth is she had decided to take a year off to spend time at home with her two sons, Christopher and Charles. Producers at Columbia/Tri-Star Television contacted her after she stepped down and proposed she star in her own show, an offer she turned down flat. “… [I]f you had told me that this is what I would be doing after I left, I would have told you to get a grip,” she told the Atlanta Journal-Constitution. Hatchett continued, “I have high regard for the work judges must do, and I was not interested in doing what I saw on TV or trivializing that in any way.”

Made a Difference in TV Courtroom

She was swayed after meeting with television executives in Los Angeles, and was convinced that she could create a new and different kind of judge show. “I feel very strongly that this is a medium through which I can do some good stuff,” she said in the Journal-Constitution. “Otherwise it’s just one more court TV show, and I’m just not going to do that.” Hatchett maintained a residence in New York City and another in Atlanta, where she relied on her mother, Clemmie, and a housekeeper to hold down the fort while she was away taping her show.

Though her newest courtroom was a stage set in a studio off-Broadway in New York City, with a live audience instead of a jury, Hatchett’s commitment to her young charges remained as unwavering as it was in Fulton County. Hatchett has taken the responsibilities of the bench very seriously. Hatchett’s daily half-hour program competed with about a dozen other reality-based courtroom shows. Like most television judges, Hatchett settled family disputes and small-claims cases involving adults, but most of her shows focused on rebellious teens and their sometimes out-of-control parents, situations which Hatchett became adept at handling on the bench in Fulton.

Hatchett, unlike the other television judges, who are known for browbeating defendants and plaintiffs, has taken a more laid-back approach. “Many of the litigants on the shows, and some of the judges, hurl around crass, cynical, and demeaning comments,” writer Leah Ward Sears opined in Christian Science Monitor. “Foul language and insults are spewed and endured without so much as a blush.” But, Sears noted, “Judge Hatchett is respectful, reverent, stable, moderate, and able to find and apply the law. She also seems more than willing to find long-term solutions to the problems facing the folks appearing before her. But, sadly, far too many courtroom shows aren’t as responsible as Glenda Hatchett’s.”

Wise, Warm, Witty, Compassionate

The stylishly dressed Hatchett has been known to step down from the bench for a “group hug” with litigants whose hope has been renewed. She has also committed herself to monitoring the progress of problem cases after they leave her courtroom. The show has even footed the bill for the therapy that Hatchett usually recommended—from family counseling to making a troubled youth visit a prison filled with real criminals to making drug users visit crack babies in a hospital ward to scare them straight. “My goal is to raise the bar on what’s happening on courtroom TV,” Hatchett told the Atlanta Journal-Constitution. “I also want people to leave the show in better shape than they were in when they got here.” A former Fulton County compatriot of Hatchett’s told the Atlanta Journal-Constitution that Hatchett has definitely not let Hollywood affect her judicial skills. After watching a show, she said, “It was just like sitting in [Hatchett’s] old courtroom. There’s nothing Hollywood about her.”

For Hatchett, the reward of her job has been the countless numbers of stories she has heard of people who came to her courtroom a mess, but have made a turnaround. She had heard from troubled kids who were in her court who have gone on to college, medical school, and social work, and from drug addicts who have gotten clean and stayed clean. “The people who come up and say, ‘Judge, I’ve gotten my life together, ’ or ‘I haven’t been in trouble’ make it worthwhile,” she said in her online biography. Hatchett told Jet, “Sometimes people need a wake-up call, an opportunity to examine the road they’re heading down in order to motivate them to change before it’s too late.”