Meet Our Notable Speakers
Hon. LaDoris Hazzard Cordell is an American retired judge of the Superior Court of California and former Independent Police Auditor for the city of San Jose, California. She is an advocate for improving transparency into charges of police misconduct. LaDoris, a graduate of Stanford Law School, was the first lawyer to open a law practice in East Palo Alto, a low-income community of color. She was appointed Assistant Dean for Student Affairs at the Stanford Law School, where she helped develop a program to increase minority recruitment. Within a year, Stanford Law School went from last to first place in enrollment of African-American and Hispanic students, among major law schools. LaDoris was the first female African-American judge in Northern California and the first female African-American Superior Court judge in Santa Clara County, California.
Robby Luckett received his BA in political science from Yale University and his PhD in history from the University of Georgia. A native Mississippian, he returned home, where he is a tenured Associate Professor of History and Director of the Margaret Walker Center at Jackson State University. His book, Joe T. Patterson and the White South’s Dilemma: Evolving Resistance to Black Advancement, was published by the University Press of Mississippi (2015). Robby is an Advisory Board member for the Mississippi Book Festival, and he serves as Vice President of the Board of Directors of Common Cause Mississippi and as Secretary of the Board for the Association of African American Museums. In 2017, Mayor Chokwe Antar Lumumba appointed him to the Board of Trustees of Jackson Public Schools, and, in 2018, he received a W.K. Kellogg Foundation Community Leadership Network Fellowship for his work in racial equity. In The New York Times article, Robby depicts what happened at Jackson State College in 1970, and the injustice that followed.
Chris Bridges works for the Equal Justice Society as a member of their legal team and as the Program Manager for EJS’s Implicit Bias Network. He is currently focusing his legal advocacy on school discipline and education issues as well as inequities within the criminal justice system. To aid in these efforts, Chris is using social science, structural analysis, and real life experiences to help broaden conceptions of present-day discrimination to include implicit bias.
Dan Ballesteros, Managing Shareholder of Hoge Fenton will be moderating the discussion. Dan joined the firm in 1989, became Shareholder in 1996, and was named Managing Shareholder in 2013. Under his leadership, the firm’s shareholders now include more than 40 percent women, and approximately one-third are of an ethnic minority. He was honored this year by the Silicon Valley Business Journal with the Latino Business Leadership Award. In the article published in the Silicon Valley Business Journal, Dan emphasizes the importance of a company reflecting the community it serves.
This information is provided as an educational service by Hoge Fenton for clients and friends of the firm. This communique is an overview only, and should not be construed as legal advice or advice to take any specific action. Please be sure to consult a knowledgeable professional with assistance with your particular legal issue. © 2020 Hoge Fenton