These shows are not only misleading, but dangerous

Do you have any evidence of this?

That is, take Judge Judy: Sheindlin retired as a family court judge in 1996.

Marilyn Milian was a Miami Circuit Court judge from 1999 to 2001.

Jerry Sheindlin (People's Court judge before M.M.) was a New York judge, first in Criminal Court, later on the Supreme Court, from 1982-1999.

Joe Brown was a Judge on the State Criminal Court of Shelby County, Tennessee.

Judge Wapner was appointed by Governor Pat Brown to the Los Angeles Municipal Court in 1959 and served 2 years before being elevated to the Los Angeles County Superior Court, where he served for 18 years before retiring.

So while it may be a mediation, many of the people are or were judges.

Oh please, get over yourself already. You're so all over the place with this that even you don't know where you stand.

In one post you vehemently state that 'these people are NOT real judges.' When someone calls you out on that, you change to 'he's not a judge in THAT jurisdiction.'

In another post you state that these are merely arbitration hearings and in yet another post you state that they're pseudo-arbitration hearings.

It's obvious from reading your posts that you have no idea what you're talking about.

It's arbitration, which is legally binding. They don't hire arbitrators off the streets, ALL of them have legal background. Arbitration is used ALL THE TIME in real life. Next time you use a credit card, read the contract. MBNA will take you to the Arbitration Forum.

And they ARE under oath.

Also, the shows are set up in such a way as to be advantageous to both parties. X amount of dollars is set aside for each case. The winner, who can only win up to $5k, gets their award. Whatever is left in the money alloted for the case is split up between plaintiff and defendant as payment for appearing. The issue of lying is not really too appealing, because even if they lose, they get half of the "case fund."

Get a clue.

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The thing is, these parties have to agree to do the show. No one forces them.

Just sounds to me like someone lost a case on one of these show and are salty about it.

Interesting original post.

I would counter though, that since these are small-claim cases only hence the maximum they are getting in these cases is $5000 USD; these are not criminal trials; any money paid does not come out of the participants' own pockets hence they don't actually lose a dime if the Judge rules against them; and the participants get paid the remainder of the $5000 USD even if they lose --- then can there ever really be a chance of the particpants being "victimized" in these cases? As the original post implies would happen. I would say no, for these reasons, it doesn't seem like they can be victimized.

If and when they ever start having shows like this for criminal trials or for high-money amounts, then maybe the points in the original post would hold up.

Plus Judge Alex is pretty good at weeding out liars via his very proficient cross examination of the witnesses.

Ummmmm...they're TV shows. People (IMHO)usually watch these shows to be ENTERTAINED and to ESCAPE reality for a few hours,not run to it.

It's a shame to go away
It's a shame to die already
--Jim Kerr, "Careful In Career"