As President of Long Beach Branch NAACP, we are proud of our ABA award-winning Law Day Program in conjunction with Keesal, Young, & Logan which was held May 4, 2022. Television Judge Glenda Hatchett was the keynote speaker. Judge Hatchett has served on the Boards of three Fortune 500 companies – HCA, The Gap Inc. and ServiceMaster Company. 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.
Law Day was created in 1957 by the American Bar Association to draw attention to both the principles and practices and practice of law and justice. The American Bar Association President, Charles S. Rhyne envisioned a special national day to mark the commitment to the rule of law. President Dwight D. Eisenhower established the first Law Day in 1958.
Congress issued a joint resolution designating May 1st as the official date for celebrating Law Day 1961. The purpose of the Long Beach Branch NAACP Law Day program is to introduce minority students from local middle schools through college to law as a career.
Special thanks to the incredible law firm of Keesal, Young, & Logan and to the lawyers, judges, prosecutors, and law firms supporting this project. They are Skip Keesal, Founder of KYL; Judge Glenda Hatchett, Hatchett Law Firm; Montgomery Cole, Madden, Jones, Cole & Johnson; Honorable Judge Kelvin D. Filer, LA Superior Court; Honorable Judge John C. Lawson, Los Angeles Superior Court Judge; Doug Haubert, LB Prosecutor; Robin Perry, Robin D Perry & Associates; Michele A. Dobson, Law Offices of Michele A. Dobson; Lucas Garcia, KYL; Saied Quandri, KYL; Nitya Bhardwaj, KYL; Chris Cammiso, KYL. John Mysliwiec of KYL is the firm’s project director. The theme for Law Day 2022 was “Toward a More Perfect Union: The Constitution in Times of Change.” The Constitution is a dynamic document, as it not only outlines a blueprint for government, but also delegates power, articulates rights, and offers mechanisms for change. It is neither perfect nor exhaustive, as our nation’s history makes clear. Legislation, court rulings, amendments, lawyers, and ‘we the people’ have built upon those original words across generations to attempt to make the ‘more perfect Union’ more real. That effort continues today, as contemporary leaders and everyday citizens raise their voices as loud as ever to fulfill the promise of the Constitution. Defining and refining those words of the Constitution might be our oldest national tradition, and how each of us works — together — toward a more perfect Union.
