Kay Lorraine

Kay Lorraine is a former professional singer and film producer. She later worked for 20 years with nonprofit agencies in Hawaii, and graduated from law school at age 70. At age 75, she earned a legal Masters in Dispute Resolution from the Pepperdine University Law School. She spent 8 months in Texas, working pro bono, reuniting immigrant families who had been separated at the border. She is a mediator doing Hawaii family-court-ordered mediations on child custody cases. Her work centers around justice for children.

Career

Lorraine was President and Executive Producer at Major League Productions, a film production company with offices in New York, Chicago and Los Angeles. After moving to Hawaii, she became CEO and Executive Director at a number of Hawaii non-profit agencies. Groups with which she was involved include Hawaii Women Lawyers, Hawaii Women's Legal Foundation, Hawaii Women's Business Center, Research Institute for Hawaii, Rascal Learning Network and CCIM. Her efforts at the Innocence Project helped free an innocent man who had been wrongfully imprisoned for 20 years. Her pro bono work at the law school was spent counseling young women who were incarcerated. In 2018, she took a leave of absence from Greg Ryan & Associates law firm to fly to Texas, where she spent 8 months working pro bono at the border, finding and reuniting immigrant children with their families.

Lorraine graduated summa cum laude with a BA in Public Policy, and then completed a Juris Doctor from the William S. Richardson School of Law at the University of Hawaiʻi. When she received her degree in 2017 at age 70, she became the oldest law student to graduate from that school.

After returning from Texas, Lorraine attended the Pepperdine Law School where she received an additional legal Masters in Dispute Resolution. She is a mediator doing Hawaii family-court-ordered mediations on child custody cases.

Harassment case

In 2014, the Hawaii Civil Rights Commission found that Lorraine, as a Jewish woman, had been the victim of religious and sexual discrimination in a hostile work environment at her 2004-2007 workplace, the Research Institute for Hawaii, USA. The commission held the institute and its founder, Christopher Damon Haig, liable and awarded her $843,200. Grounds for the decision included Haig's calling Lorraine a "Jewish seductress enticing him to sign her invoices" and his references to her "subversive Hebrew intent" and her "Hebrew foot shuffling to steal other people's intelligence." The commission considered Haig's conduct pervasive and severe. Despite emotional breakdowns, Lorraine had remained on the job because it provided the bulk of her household's income. The commission noted that she complained about Haig's comments to a member of the institute's board and received the reply "That's just Christopher being Christopher". The compensation included damages and back pay. Haig appealed the case all the way to the Hawaii Supreme Court. Haig later settled the case for an undisclosed amount.

Personal life

Lorraine had a longtime singing career, starting at four-years old when she and her mother were the warmup act at state fairs for popular singer Tennessee Ernie Ford. Later Lorraine sang with Mel Tormé through the 1970s and then with the Ike Cole Trio (brother of Nat King Cole). She also sang television and radio jingles. After leaving the stage, she became a film producer and, later, a non-profit executive. In 1994, she moved to Hawaii with her longtime husband, Brad Bate.