LaDoris Hazzard Cordell, a 1974 graduate of Stanford Law School, was the first lawyer to open a law practice in East Palo Alto, a low-income community of color. In 1978, she was appointed Assistant Dean for Student Affairs at Stanford Law School, where she implemented a successful minority admissions program. In 1982, Governor Jerry Brown appointed Ms. Cordell to the Municipal Court of Santa Clara County. In 1988, Judge Cordell won election to the Superior Court of Santa Clara County, making her the first African American woman to sit on the Superior Court in northern California.

In 2001, she retired from the bench to become Vice Provost & Special Counselor to the President for Campus Relations at Stanford University. In 2003, accepting no monetary donations, Judge Cordell, ran a grassroots campaign and won a 4-year term on the Palo Alto City Council. Judge Cordell was the Independent Police Auditor for the City of San Jose for five years (2010-2015. Under her leadership, the office gained national prominence.

In 2016, Judge Cordell chaired a Blue-Ribbon Commission in Santa Clara County that investigated the jails in the aftermath of the murder of an inmate by jail guards; she also served on a Blue Ribbon Panel that investigated the San Francisco Police Department after racist and sexist text messages surfaced. Judge Cordell has been an on-camera legal analyst for CBS-5 television and a guest commentator on Court TV, MSNBC’s “The Weekend with Joshua Johnson,” and “The Mehdi Hasan Show.” Her memoir Her Honor, a finalist for the 2021California Book Award in nonfiction was released in Fall 2022 by Celadon, a division of Macmillan Publishing.[Speaker Bio] Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet consectetur adipiscing elit. Consectetur adipiscing elit quisque faucibus ex sapien vitae. Ex sapien vitae pellentesque sem placerat in id. Placerat in id cursus mi pretium tellus duis. Pretium tellus duis convallis tempus leo eu aenean.

Brenda Harbin-Forte was a judge of the Superior Court of Alameda County in California. She assumed office in 1998. She left office in 2019.

Harbin Forte received a bachelor’s degree and a J.D. from the University of California, Berkeley in 1976 and 1979, respectively.

Before joining the superior court, Harbin-Forte was a judge on the Alameda County (Oakland) Municipal Court from 1992 to 1998. Prior to her judicial career, she worked as a settlement commissioner for the Superior Court of Alameda County from 1990 to 1992 and previously as a partner for the law firm Thelen, Marrin, Johnson, and Bridges.