trendsetter

courtroom drama
Polemic Judge Maria Lopez stormed off the bench in Boston, only to later become a popular judge on TV.

By Conrad Dahlson

Judge Maria Lopez, former Superior Court magistrate in Boston and rising star of national daytime TV, is one more reason to find Fidel Castro guilty in the first degree of depriving his country of so much talent, insight, intelligence and entertainment.
As the revolution turned their beloved island into a Soviet state by the sea, her parents joined the many Cubans who, she says, “had the courage to leave everything and come here.”
Little Maria was just 8 years old when she arrived in the United States, but even then her parents, like so many immigrants, knew the only sure way for their child to succeed in a new land was education, education, education. She learned English in just three months and continued acing her exams right up through graduation from Smith College and Boston University Law School.
“I was a product of the late 60s and early 70s, protesting against Vietnam and for human rights,” she says, “and I saw the law as a vehicle for social change. I wanted to pursue that to achieve a more egalitarian, a more humane society.”
Armed with her fierce ideals, she entered the profession as a legal services attorney representing the underprivelged in civil matters. She rose in the 1980s to assistant attorney general in the Civil Rights Division of the Massachusetts Attorney General’s Office and as Counsel to the Office for Refugees and Immigrants enforcing the state’s civil rights laws.
It was all about doing the right thing and, yes, the law could help create a better society. “My greatest moments in the law were taking risks on behalf of individuals to give them another chance,” she says. “People get involved with drugs and alcohol, and that leads them into worse things like thefts and assaults. I tried to help them, get them into rehabilitation or probation programs.”
Compassionate in not throwing away lives with unproductive punishment, she was furiously passionate in her belief that the best way to protect society was to keep redeemable convicts from being schooled in a life of crime behind bars.
“As the first and only Latina judge in Boston, I was called flamboyant, explosive—all a Latina stereotype because there weren’t many Hispanics there in positions like that. I stuck out like a sore thumb,” she declares in that tough, raspy voice so capable of putting witnesses and defendants, defense counsels and prosecutors in their place.
In the late 1980s and early 1990s Judge Maria Lopez made history as the first Latina in Massachusetts appointed as District Court Judge and soon afterwards, at the age of 35, she became the first Latina appointed to the Massachusetts Superior Court.
Life on the bench could be stormy, however, and in September 2000, during the trial of a child molester an outburst by Lopez caused her to come under investigation for abuse of power and for lacking the temperament to serve.
“I yelled at a lying prosecutor,” she says. But as the investigation went on, “I resigned. I was tired of it.”
Characteristically, Lopez did not mince words over the incident. “I sincerely apologize for my loss of temper in court,” she wrote at the time. “Accepting the recommendation of the hearing officer that I be suspended for six months and publicly endorse his findings would no doubt be the easiest and most expeditious way to maintain my judicial position. However, I cannot dishonor my 14 years on the bench, my principles, or the Massachusetts Judiciary by admitting to that which I did not do.”
It was with a sense of relief that Lopez and husband Stephen Mindich, who have two grown boys, set off for a vacation on the other side of the world, in China and India. But Boston would see her back on the bench soon enough.
“I was writing a memoir and became a scholar with the Women’s Research Center at Brandeis University, when I got a call from an entertainment group,” she recalls. “Sure I’ll see you in Los Angeles,” Lopez told them.
Courtroom dramas have become a thriving segment of daytime TV. Lopez says judges are replacing soap operas because they offer conflict, immediate resolution—you don’t have to wait week after week to see how the plot unfolds—drama and entertainment. She made a pilot, the pilot sold, and the syndicated show went on the air in September 2006.
Sony Pictures Television announced it had sold the half-hour program to channels in at least 15 cities. One of them was Boston—a “very public second act for one of the city’s most controversial public figures,” The Boston Globe observed. That’ll show ‘em, as TV’s Judge Maria might chuckle.
The success of such shows depends almost entirely on the personality of the presiding judge, and ratings for the Judge Maria Lopez show (“Justice will be served spicy”) are soaring. To such an extent, in fact, that when its second season starts in September the show will air in every one of the 210 markets in the United States.
“I have some real loyal fans,” she says. “People especially know me by my voice. They say, ‘You’re that judge on TV.’”
That harsh voice with its explosions of hectoring and humor—often both at the same time—is indeed unmistakable.
To Maria Lopez, however, all this is more than just entertainment. “I try to educate people about the law, about behavior and human relations,” she says.
And Lopez plays it straight as a judge. “This is reality TV,” she says, with an emphasis on “reality. “ And while she has her own production company, “I don’t have anything to do with preparing the show, choosing the cases or writing the scripts. I see the case when it’s presented to me.”
With all her professional duties, Maria Lopez has never failed to give back to the Hispanic community in financial and personal ways. She has supported the needs of artists and, above all, of Latino children, always stressing the critical importance of education, of setting their sights high and developing their potential. She is also currently on the board of directors of a new publication, Entre Amigos, a source for Latinos about what’s going on in the Boston area.
“If you can’t stand the heat, stay out of the courtroom,” is the line Judge Maria Lopez raps out on her show, warning wrongdoers, cheating litigants and enablers that she’s not about to pull any punches.
And the viewers’ verdict is in: They love her that way.

DOSSIER

Name: Maria Lopez
Age: 53
Fame: Star of the Judge Maria Lopez show, produced by Sony Pictures Television
Specialty: An upcoming celebrity in the thriving courtroom drama segment of daytime TV.
Previous positions:
-Assistant Attorney General, Civil Rights Division of the Massachusetts Attorney General’s Office
-Counsel to the Massachusetts Office for Refugees and Immigrants
-District Court Judge
-Superior Court Judge
Born: Havana, Cuba
Raised: Miami, Florida
Education: B.A., Smith College: Juris Doctor, Boston University School of Law