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Why did "The People's Court" Judge Become a Lawyer?Judge Marilyn Milian can be seen weekday afternoons on "The People's Court," where she dispenses justice to litigants with wit and verve. Milian previously served as a Judge in Miami-Dade County in the civil, criminal and domestic violence courts. Prior to her appointment to the bench she was a Prosecutor under Janet Reno for ten years, handling narcotics, robbery, and homicide cases. Milian is one of two dozen lawyers who contributed their personal stories telling why they became lawyers to the Afterword of Leapholes, the new novel for young adults from the Criminal Justice Section. "From a very young age, all my teachers would tell my parents, “This one will make a good lawyer!” They meant it not as a compliment, but as a complaint that I was just too argumentative for a child. If someone laid down a rule, I always wanted to know the rationale behind it. If it didn’t make sense, I wanted to debate it and expose its unfairness. When I saw a student treat another student unfairly, I wanted to fix it; and when they told me it was none of my business, it only made me want to fix it more. Lawyers have lately become a magnet for criticism and blame for all manner of problems confronting our society. Some think we fight too much, or bring too many cases to court. They make jokes about lawyers. They quote Shakespeare’s famous line that “First thing we do, is kill all the lawyers.” Of course, that line in fact paid lawyers the greatest compliment. He wrote that line for a character commenting on how to best plot the overthrow of the government, a scheme that would not be possible unless the lawyers were gone. That’s because a lawyer’s job is to see to it that wrongs are righted. When someone suffers a great harm and there is no one else to turn to…we seek out a lawyer. Before becoming a judge I spent ten years fighting for victims’ rights at the prosecutor’s office. Day after day people came to me with awful stories about the wrongs that others had done to them. Sadly, many of these victims were children. My job was to go into court and try to make things better for them by stopping the person who did the crime from doing it again, whether by putting them in jail or by forcing them to get counseling. I could not erase what had happened; but I could help to make things better, and prevent others from being victimized. That’s why I love being a judge. People come to me with their problems when they are at wit’s end…they can’t solve it on their own. They are upset, they think they have been wronged, and they want me to force someone to do what they think is the right thing. Sometimes these people are right, sometimes they are wrong. But always, I do my best to listen to both sides and try to come up with a solution to the problem that is fair and just. Now, fixing unfairness is my business, all day long! More information about the book Leapholes |
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