001you okay I'm gonna go ahead we're gonna get the call on a couple minutes [Music] you Oh Judge Judy what a pleasure and an honor this is John Pratt I'm the high school teacher in Greensburg Indiana it is and it is I can't tell you how excited we've been preparing the questions and looking forward to this well you know let's get going and the students are ready hi Judge Judy my name is Ben boss back I'm a junior here at Greensburg high school and I have the first question for you today great alright so the first question is what would you say is your biggest accomplishment and what are you most proud of well you know you spread your life into two different parts professional and that's your family so I have a lovely family
002and everybody is moving for the next generation a little bit better than their generation did so that's all good and professionally I've been lucky because so far I've had three different careers I was a lawyer which I loved and then I was a judge in the family course which I also loved television judge which is now going into its 25th year so I was very lucky because I found some things that I was naturally good at and I figured out how to make a living at each at those things and if you ask me what part of my legal career gave me most satisfaction that would have to be my work in the Family Court because substantively that's you're dealing with the lives of people and you can really make sometimes a real substantive change
003for generations if you do the right thing in a family court it what's most fun is the television courtroom first of all it pays a lot better they give you your own bathroom you know they make sure you have a catered lunch and it's a bit of fantasy so that's the fun but the most personally professionally satisfying to me was the work that I did in family court yes thank you very much you're welcome hi Judge Judy my name's Nick Cramer and I'm also a junior here at Greensburg High School my clay afternoon good afternoon my question is what made you want to be in the legal field that's relatively that's an easy question I was a terrible math student couldn't get chemistry right to say fries it up but I had a certain common
004sense of logical thinking and my father said to me well then you probably should be a senator because they probably can't do math and chemistry either my father was a dentist he could do math and he was very good in chemistry so I sort of figured in order to get to that level of good stepping stone wood beads a law he graduated from college and you don't usually go into the politics right away take a either a masters or something else but for me I always had a vague interest in the law how things worked so so long and short of the answer is my father said to me this is your strength and you have to capitalize on my strength don't try to be a dentist like me or talk to like our next-door
005neighbor or enough for an engineer because you're not naturally good fat so I order I sort of sell it to the field of law all right thank you you're welcome hi Judge Judy my name is Hannah Messer and wasa a junior my question is what advice would you give students if they had aspirations to cater to the legal field I would read a lot I would try to read about books about people who think logically people you respect so psychologically I think today young people don't creatively write as well as they should because everybody uses those machines where you know you write in cryptic shorthand and older people don't always understand it right right off the bat you know it takes me a little bit time to decipher one of my grandchildren's messages so I
006think that reading and writing and I'm not talking about just the ABCs are an important part of the legal field and the more you read the more you read about history the more you read about our government different kinds of government just successful and the unsuccessful attempt at different kinds of government and jurisprudence the better you couldn't find out whether you're naturally good at it because if you liked it if you liked studying vast you'll be it's it comes naturally to you and if it comes natural if something comes naturally to you and you can figure out how to make a living at it then you really never work because you would joy every day thank you you're welcome hi Judge Judy I'm Katie McLain and I must junior at Ginsberg high school hi my
007question is as a child did you want to be a judge if so what made you want this job and if not what did you want to be I really didn't think that I wanted to be a judge until after I was practicing lawyer and Family Court and I saw how really important why is judging was because we had at that time in New York City a lot of people who were on the bench political appointees and I realized that you had such control over whole family at least in the family court or lives of an individual if you sat in the criminal court or in the Supreme Court if you became a good lawyer and learned your craft you either had two options either you went out and he got a chocolate a law
008firm and hopefully became financially successful or you aspired to be a judge which is you sort of the last word and it was up to you to make the decision after reviewing all of the evidence and I found that for me it was much more satisfying I didn't mind a civil service salary we live just fine and I had a very satisfying job so I had a satisfying job and therefore is satisfying life thanks so much you're welcome hi Judge Judy my name is Brenner Hannah and I'm a junior and my question is what is your favorite part about being a judge well I'm gonna be 100% honest with you my favorite part about being a judge is that I get to make the rules I have to follow the law which I do but
009the law is elastic and sometimes you have to sort of find a way to wiggle and jiggle to law in order to make it fit properly the facts so that it's the end of the trial you have justice and for me that's the most interesting part of being the judge because sometimes if you have to follow a blank statute or a case that was decided in 1910 that's really no longer relevant today because we don't bring horses to work you know we don't tie up our horses outside of our workplace you have to translate into a different century what people wrote about before and what the Founding Fathers wrote about before so that's probably my favorite part about being the judge to be able and I'm not an activist judge but I sort of feel
010as if I'm a logical judge at the end of the trial the right thing is supposed to happen and that's justice and to me I've always just tried my best to make sure that that happened thank you hi judge judy my name is Arianna SIA and I'm a junior my question is has being a woman ever been in obstacle in your career no yes the answer is unequivocally not I've never felt held back by anyone from moving forward because I was a woman and and I'm often criticized because I say I don't consider myself a feminist and not that I am belittling those who were involved with the feminist movement I'm sure in some way I was probably you know given an advantage because of other people's work in the movement but I never personally
011experienced any discrimination because I was a woman thank you you're welcome hi Joe it's Judy my name is Sarah Springer and I'm also jr. did you ever imagine that you would have your own show no I'm thinking about I do however remember that after several years of being a judge on the Family Court I would watch the one courtroom program that there was on television at that time where the judge whose name is Wagner and I would say that's easy I could do that in a heartbeat but it was a fleeting moment so I never thought that I would have a program and what's the opportunity to have a program presented itself after I was already in the courts for a very long time and I decided to take that opportunity and try it and
012I had to give up my position in the Family Court I never thought it would last more than a couple of years because most things fail that they produce the television and now we find that in September we're entering our 25th year I mean when you think about it that's almost twice as old as most of you oh thank you hi Judge Judy I'm Irene and my my question for you is if you could go back in time would you have picked the same occupation absolutely absolutely I was blessed to have found a profession that was consistent with my ability with my natural instincts so I was always a person who looks forward to Monday instead of Friday if you if that makes sense to you I never started a week on a Monday counting
013the days off when it would be Friday and I wouldn't have to work I was always excited about work and and that makes whole difference in in everything in your life and the way you look and the way you feel and the way you interact with people in the way you interact with your mate and your kids and your friends you know there's a certain positive attitude when you like what you do so the answer is I would have picked the same profession and I'm grateful that I had it okay thank you you're welcome hi my name is Kailyn Lowe and I'm a junior here what made you want to create hot bench ah hot bench my husband and I were in Ireland and as we very often do when we're on vacation we should
014try to sneak in the back of the courtroom just to see what the court system is like you know just to see what the differences are and we went into the courts in Ireland on a David Freese and the holes we were there with a three-judge bench and it was very interesting to watch and when I came back to the States I said to CBS who I worked for I said I'd like an opportunity to try to pilot a program you know what a pilot is that's when they make something to see if it works using a three-judge bench to see how it works and much judges deliberate in the back don't give these give the viewing public a different perspective of what an appeals process is which is usually what a bench that has
015more than one judges it's usually in a field process and we did it and it's been successful I think we're in our seventh season of high bench thank you you're welcome hi judge judy my name is Adam Hamilton my question for you is has Brooklyn had an impact of what you do today I think every thing that I've done in my life we lived in the middle of a block so easy you had to learn how to and it was a busy street and someone probably telling you something I shouldn't my best friend lived across the street so I used to cross the street in the middle of the block and I always say dad taught me how to negotiate life because there were lots of various pieces that you had a piece together to
016cross the street in the middle of the street of the busy street in Brooklyn he had to figure out how the lights were timed at each the other streets you had to keep an eye out to see that a neighbor wasn't pulling out of their driveway you know there were lots of common sense steps that you have to piece together and almost do it instinctively to survive and Brooklyn gave me terrific survival skills thank you so much Judy thank you you're welcome Judge Judy this is John Pratt the teacher once again as we wrap this up I want to tell you we have been incredibly honored to spend 15 minutes with you you have provided an opportunity that these young students will never forget and we thank you mr. Pratt I have to tell you
017you're a wonderful teacher to have reached out and written a letter because we get lots of mail I read it all and I can't do these things all the time this sort of thing all the time deserves I've done this but he must love teaching and you must be an inspiration to your students which is really the greatest gift that you can give them is somebody who they must know cares about their future so thank you it's been a pleasure and good luck to all of you all the best to Judge Judy and tell Gary we said thank you so much thank you