Judith Susan Sheindlin (née Blum; born October 21, 1942), known professionally as Judge Judy, is an American court-show arbitrator, media personality, television producer, philanthropist, and former prosecutor and Manhattan family court judge.
For 25 seasons, from September 16, 1996, to July 23, 2021, Sheindlin starred in her eponymous top Nielsen-rated court show, Judge Judy. Sheindlin became the longest-serving television arbitrator in courtroom-themed programming history, a distinction that earned her a place in the Guinness World Records in 2015. She received a Lifetime Achievement Emmy in 2019 for her work.
On November 1, 2021, Sheindlin launched the spinoff streaming series Judy Justice on IMDb TV (now Amazon Freevee), another arbitration-based reality court show in which she handled legal disputes. After winning the Daytime Emmy Award for Outstanding Legal/Courtroom Program in 2022 for the first season of Judy Justice, she became the only television arbitrator to have won the award for more than one court show: three for Judge Judy and one for Judy Justice.
Sheindlin was born Judith Susan Blum in Brooklyn to German-Jewish and Russian-Jewish parents. She describes her dentist father Murray as “the greatest thing since sliced bread.” Sheindlin describes her mother Ethel, an office manager, as “a meat and potatoes kind of gal.”
Sheindlin graduated from James Madison High School in Brooklyn and American University in Washington, D.C., receiving a Bachelor of Arts degree in government. She next attended New York Law School, earning her Juris Doctor degree in 1965.
Sheindlin passed the New York state bar examination in 1965 and was hired as a corporate lawyer for a cosmetics firm. Within two years, she became dissatisfied with her job and left to raise her children Jamie and Adam. In 1972, she became a prosecutor in the New York family-court system after hearing about the job from a friend. In her role as a lawyer, Sheindlin prosecuted cases involving child abuse, domestic violence and juvenile offenders.
By 1982, Sheindlin’s attitude inspired New York mayor Ed Koch to appoint her as a criminal-court judge. Four years later, she was promoted to supervising judge in the family court’s Manhattan division. She earned a reputation as a tough judge (although she has disagreed with the labels “tough” and “harsh”).
In February 1993, Sheindlin’s reputation made her the subject of a Los Angeles Times article written by Josh Getlin (inspired by his wife Heidi, both of whom Sheindlin credits with her rise to fame) that profiled her as a woman determined to make the court system work for the common good. She was then featured in a segment on CBS’s 60 Minutes that brought her national recognition. This led to her first book, Don’t Pee on My Leg and Tell Me It’s Raining, published in 1996. She retired as a family-court judge that same year after having heard more than 20,000 cases.
In 1964, Judy married Ronald Levy, who later became a prosecutor in juvenile court. They moved to New York and had two children, Jamie Hartwright and Adam Levy. Her son Adam is a former district attorney for Putnam County, New York, and is now a co-star in Tribunal Justice. Judy and Ronald divorced in 1976 after 12 years of marriage.
In 1978, she married Judge Jerry Sheindlin, who was an arbitrator on The People’s Court from 1999 to 2001. They divorced in 1990, partially as a result of the stress and struggles that Judy endured after her father’s death that same year. They remarried in 1991. She has three stepchildren with Sheindlin: Gregory Sheindlin, Jonathan Sheindlin and Nicole Sheindlin, and 13 grandchildren. Jonathan is a retinal surgeon, and Greg and Nicole are lawyers. Nicole is the co-creator (along with her stepmother) of the Her Honor Mentoring program.
Sheindlin owns homes in several states, including New York, Florida, California, and Wyoming. She commuted to Los Angeles every other week for two to four days to tape episodes of Judge Judy. In May 2013, she bought a $10.7 million condominium in the Los Angeles suburb of Beverly Hills. In 2018, Judy and her husband announced spending $9 million on the Bird House, a 9,700-square-foot (900 m2) property on 3.67 acres (1.49 ha) in Newport, Rhode Island once owned by Dorrance Hill Hamilton.
Sheindlin holds honorary Doctor of Law degrees from Elizabethtown College and the University at Albany, SUNY. In 2013, she was made vice-president of the law society at University College Dublin, Ireland, in recognition of her work in family law.
Sheindlin is a registered Independent. She is a supporter of same-sex marriage and, although she has said that she is not a supporter of “big government”, she believes that the issue of same-sex marriage should be handled at the federal level rather than on a state-by-state basis. Sheindlin has stated that she is in favor of increasing requirements for gun ownership. She prefers not to be labelled by political terms, and states that she is not registered with any political party. When asked about the 2012 presidential elections, Sheindlin stated that while she voted for President Barack Obama in 2008 (as well as voting for Ronald Reagan and Bill Clinton, respectively in 1980 and 1984, and 1992 and 1996), she did not care for either of the leading candidates in the 2012 United States presidential election. In October 2019 Sheindlin penned an op-ed endorsing Michael Bloomberg for president, despite the fact that he had not announced a campaign. In January 2020 she released an ad supporting him.
Forbes named Sheindlin the highest paid host in November 2018 stemming from her $47 million per year Judge Judy salary combined with the annual income from her Judge Judy episode library. In 2018, Sheindlin earned $147 million between the $100 million from the alleged sale of the present and then future episode library of her show to CBS, in addition to her $47 million arbitration handling salary. In 2020 and 2021, Sheindlin’s net worth was reportedly $440 million and $460 million, respectively.
Written by Dianne Washington