Prior to the inception of the DeKalb Lawyers Association, The Gate City Bar Association was the only minority bar association in the Metropolitan Atlanta area.  It had been formed by African-American attorneys who primarily lived and practiced law out of Atlanta.  At the time of Gate City’s formation in 1948, the city of Atlanta was where black professionals thrived.  During the 1970s, as DeKalb County began to take strides toward being receptive to diversity, more black professionals – lawyers, physicians, and others – started to move into DeKalb County.  Nevertheless, most of the small core group of lawyers who resided in DeKalb County during the late 1970s and early 1980s lived in DeKalb but worked in Atlanta.  Though membership in the Gate City Bar Association was available, there was a need for a local organization to address the specific concerns of African-American attorneys living and practicing in DeKalb County.  Realizing that need, Michael Hancock began pitching the idea to his closest DeKalb lawyer acquaintances of forming just such a bar association in DeKalb County.   This initial meeting was held in the home of Judge Hancock.  Later, the group met in the office of Dorothy Coprich. After the numbers continued to grow along with interest in forming a local minority bar association: The DeKalb Lawyers Association was born.