10 May Poll: Judge Judy Beats Supreme Court on Trust

The Reader’s Digest just did a poll to ask Americans whom they trust the most. Of course actors like Tom Hanks and Sandra Bullock topped the list. But famed TV Judge Judy Sheindlin beat out all the US Supreme Court justices. Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, ranked #36, was in fairness close behind Judge Judy, at #28. Three other justices were ranked in the 40s. The rest were from the 50s to the 80s in the rankings. The poll gave people a list of 200 people to rank.

Of course we can try to explain this. Judge Judy is on TV every day, there are 9 justices so the voting gets split among them, the demographics of Reader’s Digest readers, etc. But it really gets to a bigger question of how average folks feel about judges and the legal profession. When I was in law school, I had to pick up my mail every day at the post office. The guy who worked there was very friendly and found out I was studying law. Every day after that his joke when I came in was, “How’s my favorite liar, I mean lawyer today?” I know he was just kidding and there are 10 million lawyer jokes (“What do you call 500 lawyers at the bottom of the ocean? A good start.”). But there are not 10 million doctor jokes, or architect jokes, or engineer jokes (well maybe there are some of those).

I hope all of us in the legal profession will work on those aspects of our personalities and approach to clients and the public at large to help build greater trust in our profession and our approach to justice and to being great advocates for our clients. OK, kicking off the soapbox!