What you are about to witness is real. The participants are not actors. They are the actual people who have already either filed suit or been served a summons to appear in a California municipal court. Both parties in the suit have agreed to dismiss their court cases and have their disputes settled here, in our forum: The People's Court.
The People's Court Levin is now based in Los Angeles with TMZ, the viewing area has moved to the Third Street Promenade in Santa Monica, California, while production of "The People's Court" has moved to Connecticut. The opening outlines of the taped cases are shown to people in the outdoor viewing area on a monitor. Their responses are edited into the program. Judge Jerry Sheindlin (husband of former New York Family Court Judge Judith Sheindlin, the presiding judge over the court show "Judge Judy") sat on the bench from September 13, 1999, to March 9, 2001, and ratings on the show lagged. The
Court show was the courtroom; however, performance and drama had been known to leave the courtroom sporadically for short periods so as to add a story-like quality and fill out the plotline. Some of the shows had thematic cases, such as traffic-themed ("Traffic Court"), divorce-themed ("Divorce Court"), etc. Far more realistic than their dramatized predecessors, arbitration-based reality versions do not use actors, scripts, or recreations. Rather, they feature litigants who have legitimately been served and filed lawsuits, presenting their cases to an adjudicator (in exchange for agreeing to appear on the show, the litigants must agree to dismiss their genuine cases with