Lourdes Gillespie Baird

Mary Lourdes Gillespie Baird (born May 12, 1935) is an Ecuadorian-born American lawyer and jurist who previously served as a United States district judge for the United States District Court for the Central District of California from 1992 to 2004. Early life and education Baird was born as Lourdes Gillespie in Quito, Ecuador on May 12, 1935, the seventh child of Josefina Delgado and James C. Gillespie. A year later the family relocated to Los Angeles, California, where Baird was raised a devout Catholic and enrolled in Catholic all-girls schools. After graduating high school, she went to a secretarial college before marrying businessman William T. Baird, with whom she had three children. She then returned to school and went on to receive an Associate of Arts degree from Los Angeles City College in 1971, a Bachelor of Arts degree in sociology from the University of California, Los Angeles in 1973, and a Juris Doctor from the UCLA School of Law in 1976. Career