Judith Susan Sheindlin (née Blum; born October 21, 1942), known professionally as Judge Judy, is an American court-show arbitrator, media personality, television producer, author, a women's advancement 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, 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 is also known for her offscreen television work, producing and creating reality legal shows featuring judges whom she has cast in arbitrating roles. These shows include Hot Bench (second-highest-rated of all court shows, behind only Judge Judy reruns), the upcoming Tribunal (to feature Bailiff Byrd) and another planned program. Early life 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. Legal career 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