Serving Up Spice and Drama in the Courtroom: Judge Maria Lopez
by Mary Waldron
Last year, Maria Lopez took her legal and judicial experience to television with the launch of her show Judge Maria Lopez.
After the Bay of Pigs invasion in 1961, when Lopez was only eight years old, her parents picked up and left their homeland in Havana, Cuba. The constant turmoil and danger in the country caused them to seek a better life in America.
"My family of five arrived in Miami with two suitcases containing everything we owned. We left a middle-upper-class lifestyle in Cuba, and I lived with my parents in the back of a tropical fish store-a studio apartment," she said.
Three months after their arrival in the U.S., in December of 1961, the Lopez family made the trek to Connecticut. "It was the first time I experienced snow," she said of the weather when they arrived. "My mother had no clue how to dress us. We were out there sledding with one pair of socks on and sneakers. It was wild."
Luckily for Lopez, she picked up English quickly and had a grasp on the language by the time she moved to Connecticut. The family relocated to the small town of New Britain where Lopez often felt alienated or like one of the "others" because of her heritage.
"We were the only Latin family in New Britain, Connecticut," she said. "We spoke a different language at the house. We ate different food. We didn't know all the customs. It was really quite difficult. My mother didn't speak English. It was a typical immigrant experience when the kids speak English, and the parents don't speak English. The kids sort of become in charge."
Once Lopez settled into her new home, she grew up, graduated from high school, and went on to college. She attended Smith College in Massachusetts and Boston University Law School. Like many attorneys during that time, Lopez pursued a legal career to help work toward justice in her country and to serve society.
"I was a product of the late 1960s and early 1970s. I was passionate about the anti-Vietnam movement, civil rights movement, and women's rights. I saw law as a vehicle for social change. It was the mean by which I could help make the world a better place for people," said Lopez.
Lopez went on to become a legal services attorney, representing disadvantaged people in civil matters. Later on, from 1980 to 1987, Lopez served as the Assistant Attorney General in the Civil Rights Division of the Massachusetts Attorney General's office. In 1988, she went on to serve as Counsel to the Office for Refugees and Immigrants.
"You establish your reputation as a lawyer by your performance, and often times, that first impression that you make with clients, judges, and juries is critical."
"I dedicated my legal career to representing and defending the rights of the poor, disenfranchised, and marginalized," she said. "It was a fight. It was a fight for people to be treated equally. To this day, even with the 'Jena 6' down in Louisiana, civil rights is still a big issue in this country. That's what I've learned. There are tribal conflicts, racial conflicts, and religious conflicts going on all over the world. How do we get above that? How do we get better than that?"
Later on, in 1988, Lopez decided that she wanted to venture to the other side of the bench and become a judge. "Instead of being the advocate, I wanted to be the one making the decisions. If I wanted to have an impact on the lives of people and communities, I thought making the decision was the most important thing I could do."
Lopez became the first Latina to be appointed to the bench in Massachusetts. She made even bigger news when she was called as the first Latina in the Massachusetts Superior Court in 1993.
Lopez is notorious for presiding over the Charles "Ebony" Horton case that involved a transgender person who was accused of molesting a child. Many people did not agree with her sentence, criticizing it for not being harsh enough. When she and the prosecutor of the case had a heated argument over the sentence, Lopez was ordered to apologize, but she stood her ground and stepped down from the bench in 2003.
Q. What was the last thing you ate?
A. I ate a Belgian waffle with bananas.
Q. Throughout your lifetime, what movie have you watched the most?
A.A Fish Called Wanda.
Q. What was the last book you read?
A.A Thousand Splendid Suns.
Q. What is your favorite flavor of ice cream?
A. Oreo cookie.
Q. If you had an extra hour in the day, what would you spend it doing?
A. Exercising.
Years later, an entertainment attorney from Boston called Lopez inquiring if she was interested in doing a court television show. The attorney had a connection with a talent agent who worked on unscripted television and was looking for a Latina judge from Boston. Before she knew it, Lopez is in Los Angeles meeting with agents and producers and filming her show's pilot, which was bought by Oxygen. As she enters her show's second season, she still can't believe where her career has taken her.
"I never thought about television. This was never, ever on my radar screen," she said.
Lopez has also gained a reputation for ordering creative and unusual punishments in her courtroom. "The punishment must fit the crime," she said. One example of this was in the case of a boating accident that left a young man dead and his friend in the defendant's seat. The young man was given a year in jail and was ordered to build a memorial for his friend at the site of the accident.
As she looked back at her legal career, Lopez noted that today's law students and attorneys need to make sure that they fully invest in their careers early on.
"You've got to work really hard in the beginning," Lopez said. "You can't take anything for granted. You establish your reputation as a lawyer by your performance, and often times, that first impression that you make with clients, judges, and juries is critical. It's important that you over-prepare."
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