Everything I Learned in Life, I Learned From Judge Judy

After 25 seasons on daytime, Judith Sheindlin has left an indelible watermark on my own aura of vigor

Photo by Paramount TV / Courtesy Everett Collection (via People magazine)

I realize that Judge Judith Sheindlin isn’t everybody’s cup of tea. Having presided over her daytime TV courtroom for a quarter-century, Judge Judy has enshrined itself as both a notorious and nostalgic staple within pop culture.

I’ve been a loyal viewer of Judge Judy ever since it premiered during my freshman year of high school. It’s a part of me. But that doesn’t mean I worship Sheindlin as some infallible deity. I recognize plenty of her flaws — which I shall address, much later on in this article.

Back in March of 2020, Sheindlin announced her decision to part ways with CBS Media Ventures. At that point, the coronavirus pandemic had just begun. Sheindlin chose to shift her energy to a newly-announced project, which will be a streaming program titled Judy Justice. It will officially premiere next month on IMDb TV.

When she made the announcement, Judge Judy was nearing the end of its twenty-fourth season. That timeline designated Season 25 (airing during the 2020–21 television season) as her “farewell season.” Its final episode aired on July 23 of this past summer. I still haven’t seen the actual episode — although I’ll be on the lookout for it, in reruns. Apparently, Sheindlin wore a hairclip shaped like a bumblebee, paying homage to her fans. The glitzy hairpiece signified her production company, Queen Bee Productions.

The twenty-fifth season of Judge Judy was bittersweet for me. It went out with very little fanfare. This was due to the unfortunate reality that her final season was being filmed amidst COVID-19 safety precautions, which meant that her courtroom’s live studio audience had to be eliminated. Additionally, she filmed most of those final episodes remotely from one of her homes on the East Coast, while her litigants still appeared in her Los Angeles studio. To be fair, they edited it marvelously…to the point where you could barely tell that Sheindlin was interacting with them through a video monitor.

So why have I had this quarter-century-long obsession with Judge Judy? In short, her brash style and low bullshit tolerance has been a vicarious manifestation of my own psyche that I’ve often been too meek to express.

Most prominently, I admire the way she tells off ridiculous people. Those who have an aversion to listening. Those who love to hear themselves talk. Those who try to deceive her by playing word games during their testimony. Those who seek to verbally bulldoze their way over her.

Let’s review some of the most killer “Judge Judyisms” from her tenure on the daytime bench.

One-liners she throws at people, when they’re trying to manipulate her:

“On your BEST day, you’re not as smart as me on my WORST day.”

“I DON’T BELIEVE YOU!”

“You’re fibbing. You’re a fibber.”

“Liar, liar, pants on fire!”

“Are you trying to talk over me?”

“I’m SPEAKING!”

“Put on your listening ears…”

“Beauty fades; dumb is forever.”

“They don’t keep me around because I’m gorgeous — they keep me around because I’m smart.”

“This is my playpen…”

One-liners she lobs at litigants who are clearly unprepared to present adequate evidence that support their claims:

“Does it say ‘STUPID’ here?” (she points at her forehead)

“‘Um’ is not an answer!”

“That’s the most ridiculous thing I ever heard!”

“Where did you think you were coming, today — the beach?”

“This is such nonsense!”

“Well, how did you know that? Did Carnac tell you?”

One-liners she releases from her vocal chords when litigants are providing way too much extraneous information, or when they’re attempting to distract the discussion away from their own culpability:

“Don’t try to confuse me!”

“I DON’T CARE!”

“Keep it simple. I’m a very simple girl.”

“No good deed goes unpunished.”

“I didn’t ask you for a geschichte!”

“And if I’d been six inches taller and blonde, I could have been a runway model…”

“That falls under the category of Shoulda/Woulda/Coulda.”

“I don’t care how you feel. Your feelings are irrelevant to me. If you want to talk about your feelings, go on Dr. Phil.”

“You’re asking for [damages related to] ‘pain-and-suffering.’ What about my ‘pain-and-suffering’ — having to listen to this ridiculous case?”

“If something doesn’t make sense, then it’s probably not true.”

“That’s NOT what I asked you!”

Not to mention how she lashes out at people who are getting on her nerves. Here’s some of the castigation Sheindlin’s litigants will receive when they interrupt, heckle, hem, haw, or try to offer their unsolicited two-cents:

“WHAT?!?!”

“Speak not!”

“Put your hand down!”

“Uncross your arms.”

“Do I look like I need any help from you?”

“Quit shuffling your papers.”

“Don’t look over there! Look right here!” (points to her own eyes)

“Perfect!”

“Sit down!”

“Don’t tell me ‘basically’ — ‘basically’ is a filler word.”

“Out!”

It’s a surrogate experience. That’s why millions of us are so obsessed with watching Judge Judy. We wish we had the courage to say half of the things she says to her litigants.

But we can’t. “The real-world” demands self-censorship from a majority of us, as badly as we’d like to call people out on their entitled, unrepentant, narcissistic, pathetic, half-baked, intellectually-dishonest bullshit.

There are, unfortunately, adverse consequences for so many of us who’d love to deal with psychopaths, sociopaths, and narcissists in the way Sheindlin gets to.

Journalists have asked Sheindlin how much of her behavior in her TV courtroom is performative. Usually, she insists that the way she conducts herself in front of the camera is how she ran her actual courtroom, during her earlier years as a family court judge.

I’m half-skeptical and half-persuaded. Inevitably, I do believe there is a certain degree to which Sheindlin intentionally plays things up for the cameras. On the other hand, I can also easily visualize her having uttered so many of the catchphrases from Judge Judy even during those days when she was presiding over an actual judicial courtroom throughout the 1980s and early-90s.

Then there’s her ever-present bailiff, Petri Hawkins-Byrd. Addressed by his boss as merely “Byrd,” he has become a fan favorite — probably because his relationship with Sheindlin is full of such banter and respect. She brought him onto television with her directly from her old family courtroom, where Byrd had been her real-life bailiff.

Although Byrd’s main role on the program is to ferry documents and photographs back-and-forth between the judge and her litigants, Sheindlin often leans on him to discipline unruly litigants…or just as someone to whom she can pointedly utter a wry comment, out loud. Some of my favorite moments on Judge Judy are when she “brings Byrd into it.” For example, Sheindlin will ask Byrd for knowledgeable assistance when she’s trying to understand advanced technology or newer language with which she’s unfamiliar. Or, she’ll refer to Byrd in the third person to illustrate a point — such as when she’s raking a litigant over the coals for being irresponsible (“Because of your recklessness, the state has to pay for your mistake — and now Byrd’s taxes will go up!”)

Although, half the time, Byrd just stands there doing crossword puzzles…or he snickers in amusement at one of Sheindlin’s trademark burns.

All of that being said: I do have some major issues with Sheindlin. I don’t care for the intrusive nature of many of her questions to litigants, even though I realize she’s just trying to suss out their motives. She can be extremely ageist, flinging blanket condemnation upon younger people in general. Similarly, she displays neofeminist tendencies by flagrantly insisting that men have inferior judgment, maturity, or intellect compared to women. But, nonetheless, in spite of her casual misandry, she can also be merciless toward her female litigants under the supposition that “they should know better” because “women are supposed to be smarter [than men].”

In fact, during my second semester as a transfer student at Cal State Northridge in 2007, I wrote a research paper on the hypothesis of gender bias on Judge Judy. After doing a content analysis of a week’s worth of episodes, I analyzed whether Sheindlin’s speech indicated any comparative sex or gender preferences toward her litigants (statistically, it didn’t).

Mary Schaffer, my professor for that multimedia class, loved it so much that she invited me to do a semester-long independent study with her, to expand upon that research. I got to present my findings at an Autumn 2007 symposium.

I then sent a copy of my final research paper to the actual production offices of Judge Judy. I received a personal phone call from Armando Gonzalez, the assistant to the Executive Producers, offering to send me a hand-signed autograph from Sheindlin. However, contrary to what I’d read on Wikipedia, Armando told me that if I wanted to be a paid audience member for some episodes of Judge Judy, I’d have to go through the casting company they used.

Yes, that was one of my dreams — to be a paid (or unpaid) extra in the audience of an episode of Judge Judy. It was never fulfilled.

Some critics have accused Judge Judy of exploiting people of color and poor people. I’m skeptical of this claim. Anybody who agrees to go on Judge Judy should have watched episodes of it, beforehand, to know what they were getting themselves into. Besides that, the show pays for the monetary damages on the losing litigant’s behalf, whenever Sheindlin rules in another litigant’s favor. Litigants also receive an appearance fee simply for participating in the episode, regardless of whether the judge rules in their favor. Their hotel and airfare are likewise compensated, by the show.

Getting humiliated on national television is a small price to pay, in the eyes of many, when the tradeoff is a studio covering your debts and liability.

A host of other memories, regarding how Judge Judy has weaved its way in and out of my daily life:

Around the same time Judge Judy was first picked up by my local Fox affiliate in the Spring of 1997, I was sexually-assaulted by a classmate (during the second semester of my freshman year of high school). Our high school vice-principal, Mrs. Weber, was the only person willing to stand up for me. She slightly reminded me of Judith Sheindlin in her personality (minus some of the garishness).

While working at my hometown’s Parks & Rec Department, the summer before my freshman year of college: I was joking around with a couple of my coworkers at city hall. We were having a mini-debate about public nudity. When my coworker, Vonnie, told me “You’re right” in regard to a valid point I’d made, I responded with a catchphrase that I’d lifted directly from Judge Judy:

“Of course I’m right! I’m always right!”

I didn’t mean it literally, of course (and neither does Sheindlin, when she says it). I said it for comic relief. Vonnie was taken aback, and I lightheartedly told her I’d stole that from Judge Judy. To which she responded, while squinching up her face:

“Oh, I can’t stand her!”

And then our other coworker, Jan, piped in — and nonchalantly disagreed with Vonnie’s opinion of Sheindlin:

“She’s my hero.”

During my final full academic year of college, one of my suitemates, Scott, also loved Judge Judy as his own guilty pleasure. We bonded over it — while our other two suitemates, Nathan and Russell, must have thought we were nuts!

There was also my boss at my work-study gig. According to Vangie, our office manager at the Department of Health Sciences, she had an aversion to Judge Judy because Sheindlin was “too loud.”

While I was working as a playground aide for the Los Angeles Unified School District throughout 2008 and 2009, I would deal with bratty students by (what I called) “Judge Judying” them. Essentially, saying a few of the types of lines that Sheindlin would fling at her impudent litigants; or, engaging in the types of thought-experiments (the variations where she roped Byrd into her commentary) to illustrate a point.

In 2012, during the weeks when two of my housemates, Nick and Sarah, were preparing to move out of our rental house, they passed through our kitchen while I was cooking with Judge Judy simultaneously on the DVR. Sarah casually said to me:

“We’re going to miss your Judge Judy.”

To which I playfully replied:

“Well, she isn’t ‘my’ Judge Judy…she’s America’s Judge Judy.”

In response, Nick and Sarah laughed uproariously.

And, in January 2015, my new coworker Sheni told me about her own appearance on Judge Judy from two years earlier, when her then-fiancé took her to court for selling the engagement ring he’d given to her. She lost the case, but her ex was thoroughly humiliated by Sheindlin for his obstinance.

Will I try to find a way to check out Judy Justice? Possibly. But it won’t be the same.

Judge Judy itself will live on via reruns, with its gigantic library of a quarter-century’s worth of vintage episodes. My local Fox affiliate still airs those reruns during the 11am-Noon and 4pm-5pm blocs of its daytime schedule.

But here’s really what it comes down to: I wish I could have channeled “my inner Judge Judy” against bullies throughout school. And not just other kids — but also against the adults who tormented me, in and out of school.

However, had I been brazen enough to do that, I would have broken my immaculate streak of going thirteen years without ever having received detention.

Judge Judy Sheindlin is a living, breathing “Mary Sue” (for those unfamiliar with the term: a “Mary Sue” is an uninhibited literary personification of an author’s inner voice).

Many of us wish we could *be* her.

But, due to the realities of our society — we’re just going to have to settle for absorbing shards of her persona, and judiciously (pun intended!) choosing to assert those moments of strength and courage whenever we can get away with it.

Thank you for reading!

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