The frightening fantasy image of Jerry Springer sporting a horsehair wig, judicial gown and manically wielding a gavel must have crossed Robert Rinder’s mind when he accepted the challenge of becoming the UK’s answer to America’s judicial television phenomenon, Judge Judy.
Would a British incarnation of former New York family court judge Judith Sheindlin successfully walk the precarious tightrope between farce and fact-based entertainment?
So far, the verdict on Judge Rinder — which ITV launched nearly six weeks ago with the criminal law barrister on the bench — is favourable and not as much a targetof outright derision from the legal profession as expected.
The latter is something of a relief to Rinder, whose day-job finds him at London chambers 2 Hare Court. While clearly pleased that the programme is a hit — bringing in some 1.2 million viewers daily, the most for ITV’s 2pm weekday slots this year — he is more satisfied that fellow lawyers have not completely pilloried his onscreen efforts.
“It is always wise to expect the worst and hope for the best,” says Rinder, who was called to the Bar at Inner Temple in 2001. “I anticipated that from the profession as a whole — apart from those in my chambers — there would be a good deal more vocal criticism. But on the contrary there has been quite a bit of support.”
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Rinder came to the attention of ITV’s head of daytime programming through an earlier pitch he made to revive and update the 1970s programme, Crown Court. While executives baulked at that, they plumped instead for a bid to transplant the Judge Judy formula.
Not least of Judge Rinder’s fans, according to various Twitter feeds, are law students, who are presumably idling away an afternoon hour in between boning up on contract law. Rinder maintains the programme has also launched social media debates among the public about issues they might not normally consider.
“It has started real discussions over whether, in specific circumstance, a contract exists, or over consumer issues, or issues around lending between family members. For lawyers, it’s all very basic law — but it’s a useful exercise for ordinary people.”
That grassroots popularity appears to have convinced ITV executives to extend the programme for at least a second series of another 50 episodes, with an option on a third. The network will not officially confirm but those close to the programme say Judge Rinder will return to screens after the first series ends in the middle of this month.
It does have its critics, though. Some legal commentators maintain the programme is little more than low-brow, sensationalist reality television with no educational or social value. It is also accused of being overly Americanised, with, as one critic says, the set resembling something out of Perry Mason. So it paints an inaccurate picture of English — or wider UK — court structures and procedures.
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Others are more relaxed, as is Rinder himself. “People have suggested that it is pantomime to some extent,” he acknowledges. “And I accept that superficially it doesn’t look like a standard small claims court. But fundamentally what matters is whether the law is dealt with and applied in the same way that it would be in a small claims court; and I think it is.”
He also argues that the UK programme is more weighty than its US counterpart. “One of the things that is different from Judy,” he says, “is we allow enough time for the stories in each of the cases to emerge fully.” Indeed, the average Judge Rinder case takes 20 minutes of air time, the same period in which Judge Judy will shoehorn in several hearings. “It is not just about me; it’s about the characters, their stories and their backgrounds. We give them a full and complete hearing — it’s not just about me shouting.”
If nothing else, the law around Judge Rinder will be of interest to the wider legal profession. The barrister himself describes Ofcom’s regulatory and compliance regime covering the programme as a “minefield” that has taken the programme’s legal team hours to negotiate. Participating “litigants” contract to accept Rinder’s rulings.
However, while he can hand down financial awards pegged to the maximum available in the small claims court (currently £10,000), he cannot order specific action. “For instance,I can suggest — and often I do, particularly when there is no financial award made — that someone return to someone else a piece of property, or they ought to cut down a tree. But I can’t oder that performance; I can’t say you must give something back.”
The programme also, wittingly or not, provides further fodder to the debate over televising actual British court proceedings. Indeed, some argue that to counter the Judge Rinder fantasy version, cameras should be allowed into courts more regularly to illustrate to the public how procedures work.
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For his part, Rinder is a fan of the televising of the Supreme Court. “I expect it is only watched by students and lawyers,” he says, “but it is important for people to have the opportunity to watch the highest court in the land to see how it operates.”
Whether he eventually hangs up his wig for a full-time television career is a decision the barrister has yet to make. But the programme is already having an effect on his practice, being partially responsible for his move to drop out of an 18-month complex corruption case in the Turks and Caicos Islands.
Nonetheless, if Rinder achieves even a fraction of the television success of his US counterpart — Sheindlin is reported to be on $45 million (£27 million) annually for bringing in some 9.63 million viewers a day — then that looks a lot better than criminal law legal aid rates.
Broadcast law
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Law in Action on BBC Radio 4. Launched in 1984, the programme aims to be a “jargon-free but rigorous analysis of legal stories in, behind, and ahead of the news”. 1.36 million listeners weekly. Next season starts in October.
Unreliable Evidence is Radio 4’s companion piece to Law in Action, albeit with a lower listening figure of just over 975,000 per episode.
Legal Hour is London radio station LBC’s entrant. It is a weekly phone-in programme, the only one of its kind, featuring Outer Temple Chambers barrister Daniel Barnett.
The legal profession’s verdict
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John Samuels QC, retired full-time circuit judge, who continues to sit ad hoc in the Crown Court: