Don't Pee on My Leg and Tell Me It's Raining: America's Toughest Family Court Judge Speaks out.

Judy Sheindlin with Josh Getlin HarperCollins Publishers, 10 East 53d St., New York, NY 10022. 238 pp., $23.

Reviewed by Susan M. Lach

Rush Limbaugh, move over! You have met your match in Judy Sheindlin, a New York family court judge.

It is difficult to tell what purpose, if any, this book serves except to provide fodder for arch conservatives who gleefully trash certain "liberal" ideologies embedded in the Bill of Rights. The book should certainly make its author the darling of the daytime talk show circuit.

Sheindlin has been a judge for 24 24 years in New York City. In her book, she professes to tackle many of today's difficult social issues, such as crime, divorce, and welfare. But she really only manages to lightly touch on those subjects in such a way as to increase the anger, alarm, and lack of power perceived by many people who find themselves in family court.

The book jacket states, "In Judge Sheindlin's Manhattan courtroom, nothing is too outrageous--including the judge." Indeed, she appears to delight in offending lawyers and litigants who enter her courtroom and in shocking her readers with numerous examples of her conceited insensitivity.

This book ceases to be entertaining after the first chapter, when it becomes painfully obvious that the author lacks compassion for and would deny certain basic civil rights to many who come before her.

Sheindlin uses isolated, anecdotal incidents to "illustrate" social problems and then provides one- or two-sentence solutions based on her professional and personal experience--she has been married twice and has five children.

Judge Sheindlin's attacks are not limited to the people who come into her court. She also takes on social institutions, lawyers, and other judges. One chapter is entitled "Judicial Diversity Doesn't Mean a Mixed Bag of Nuts," meaning that affirmative action has compromised the judiciary.

She also complains that using "closed" hearings--for example, in juvenile or paternity cases--only "protect[s] lousy lawyering, bad judging, and ineffective social institutions, and sometimes all three at once."

Here is Sheindlin's view of criminal defense attorneys:

In my years on the bench, I have

known many lawyers who are strongly

committed to representing the poor.

Whether they are called legal aid lawyers

or public defenders, they share a

philosophy that essentially views perpetrators

as victims. Even though

someone breaks the law, according to

their credo, they are victims of much

larger social injustices, and must be

treated with understanding. This kind

of thinking persists even when defenders

of the poor and downtrodden 

themselves become victims. When we

tail to punish aggressors, we all become

victims. Maybe the bleeding hearts

should wear a sign that says "Mug Me

First!" so the rest of us would have a

chance. Try that for compassion and

understanding.

Sheindlin's solution to juvenile crime' End parole and probation, stop providing free lawyers, and lock the defendants all up, the first time and every time, the longer the better.

To justify this, she cites two examples of juveniles who came before her bench. One had a history of 11 previous arrests and another had two previous drug arrests and had been charged with assaulting an officer.

These are fairly clear-cut cases--most juvenile court judges would award these offenders lockup time. However, family court often deals with much more complex issues.

Statistics indicate that many juvenile law breakers come from troubled family backgrounds and that the answer is not always incarceration. Implementing Scheindlin's "get tough" measures would simply shake up the system without providing any solutions.

Judge Sheindlin also deals a heavy hand to litigants in divorce proceedings. A brief review of a few subchapter titles is enlightening: "Equal Rights for Men --Until They Seek Custody" (referring to her perception that men are not treated equally in custody matters); "The Ultimate Weapon: He Abused the Kids" (implying that most child abuse allegations in custody cases are groundless); "The Solution--Joint Custody" (disregarding all current studies on the issue).

I am glad I do not inhabit the same world as author and judge Judy Sheindlin, whose view of our system of justice is evident in the following quotes from her book: "Beauty Fades, Dumb Is Forever," "Nonprofit Agencies--The Ultimate Misnomer," "Family Preservation Nonsense," and "The Judicial Hall of Shame Is Crowded."