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. 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.