Judge Judy has been a staple of daytime TV for 30 years, but now televised courts are becoming a family affair with her son, Adam Levy, picking up the gavel and donning the robe for "Adam's Law." Judge Levy joins CBS News to preview the new show.
Page D2From§Eachthe early evening edition — 16 September 2026
After 30 years on the bench, Judge Judy retires and appoints her son her successor.
As it ran on the front
Judge Judy, a program, died last week in syndication after thirty years on the bench, the family confirmed at a party held to mark the occasion. She was born in 1996, daughter of daytime television and small-claims court, and lived to see twenty-five seasons of her own docket before handing down her final verdict on "Judy Justice" this October.
The cause was retirement, announced without incident on September 12, when Sheindlin, then 83, revealed the show would end and that she would remain, as ever, employed in the entertainment business. Two days later, on September 14, the succession was made official: her son, Adam Levy, premiered "Adam's Law" in national syndication, telling reporters he had "learned from the best." He did not run for the gavel. It was handed to him.…
…(cont) By the time the party marking the exit closed out this week, the arrangement had the shape of the family businesses this page usually covers under other names: an owner steps back, an heir steps forward, and the enterprise itself never actually leaves the household. Nobody auditioned. Nobody had to. The bench was, it turns out, a chair, and chairs can be willed.
Judge Judy is survived by "Adam's Law," which inherits not just her gavel but her format, her tone, and, by Levy's own account, her method. She is preceded in death by Judge Wapner, whose "People's Court" opened the courtroom to cameras a generation earlier and asked nothing of blood.
There is no scandal to dig up here, no penny-ante grift behind the curtain — a mother built a program, her son learned the trade at her elbow, and a network looked at thirty years of ratings and decided the safe move was continuity. That is not malarkey. That is just how a hit gets kept in the family, same as a Senate seat or a car dealership, and the audience is not expected to notice the difference. It is a shit way to run a search committee, but nobody convened one.
In lieu of flowers, the next time an institution announces its "next generation" is ready, ask who else auditioned for the job.
“She retires and instead of a search committee, the gavel goes straight to her kid — that's not succession, that's inheritance with a laugh track. Works the same way in every family business that gets to call itself an institution: the job never leaves the house, it just gets a new show name. Nobody's cutting you a check like that when your shift ends.”
“Adam Levy spent thirty years watching a licensed judge work — you're going to call that nepotism? That's called an apprenticeship, that's called the free market rewarding the best-trained candidate. Okay, it's also his mother's show and her production company, but that's — that's just good succession planning, is what that is.”
The receipts
Judge Judy gave a party a few nights ago.
· Judge Judy preparing to end decades-long run as TV's toughest judge from the morgue, 12 Sep 2026
· Judge Adam Levy previews his ‘nitty-gritty’ new show – and how his style compares to his mom Judge Judy from the morgue, 14 Sep 2026
· Judge Judy, 83, makes major announcement regarding her future on television as end of ‘Judy Justice’ nears from the morgue, 11 Sep 2026
This page is a back-issue: the story as it ran, receipts as they were. The current edition is at the front. The byline is a pen name for a column drafted by a machine and checked by the editor: how this is made.