Judge Faith Jenkins is one of television’s leading judges. Hailing from Louisiana, the judge, attorney and former Miss Louisiana landed her own show, Judge Faith , after regularly appearing on programs for networks from CNN to Fox News. The Queen of Court TV visited The Breakfast Club this morning to discuss her show, court TV, and the craziest case she’s presided over.
On how she landed the Judge Faith show: “I started out as a prosecutor here in Manhattan. Before that, I worked at a really big law firm doing civil litigation, so I just had a range of experience. And what happened was the George Zimmerman trial happened. I covered that case for all of the networks every day as a legal analyst.
So they called me after I did the trial and said, ‘We saw you on with Al Sharpton one night and Bill O’Reilly the next night, and you can handle both of these audiences. We think you could have broad appeal to do a nationally syndicated court show.”
On TV court being real: “It’s real. These are real cases. We find them. People file cases all across the country. We have runners that go into the courts, read the case files, make copies and send them to our producers and then we call them.”
On if people who appear on her show are paid: “There’s a small appearance fee.”
On the credentials needed to be a television judge: “It’s just experience. I had civil and criminal, so it was just based on the experience.”
On the craziest case she’s had: “It was a real filed case in Atlanta. A guy who walked into the court looking like a deacon from church – he had on a suit and all of this stuff. He was probably 50 years old and he was suing this 21-year old college student because he paid for services and she didn’t give it to him.”
The entire interview between The Breakfast Club and Judge Faith Jenkins can be viewed above.