| |
Fame & Fortune: TV's Judge Alex Ferrer
Education is the
key to financial security | | |
| Bankrate: When
you try a case on TV, how can you reasonably try a case in less than half an hour?
Judge Alex Ferrer: Sometimes
I can't. Sometimes I can try a case in 5 minutes because it's such
a simple case, but I don't limit the time I spend on any case. I
start trying a case, and if it takes me an hour and a half, I take
an hour and a half. The networks have been very good about it. They
never tell me, "You need to shorten the time on this case."
It's their job, when I'm done with the case, to edit it down. I
don't curtail the time that the litigants get. The editors go in
and say, OK, how do we make this fit in an 18-minute window, or
whatever, and they edit it to fit. Sometimes I pull my hair out
because I say, oh my God; they cut this section out which was the
basis for my ruling. But 99 times out of 100 they do an amazingly
good job of editing it down. I'm really impressed, because they're
not lawyers, and yet they do a good job of keeping it entertaining
but also addressing the legal issues.
Bankrate: You used
to deal with murder, rape, drug dealing -- big cases. The cases on TV are considerably
more minor. Do you miss dealing with cases that have a greater impact?
Judge Alex Ferrer: I don't miss dealing
with those types of cases, although I thought the same thing (at
first). One of my last cases was a serial killer, and then I went
to cases where people are fighting over a wig. I thought that would
be a letdown. But the people who appear in front of me, to them,
theirs are the most important cases. I've had people sue for $40
and it costs them $70 in court fees, but to them it's such a matter
of principle that they were wronged by this person, and they want
somebody to call them out, to show that this person is a thief or
whatever. They're very passionate about their cases, and it rubs
off.
Bankrate: Considering that your
parents were raised in a very different society, what were you taught about how
to handle money?
Judge Alex Ferrer: I started working
when I was about 15 years old, pumping gas at a gas station owned
by a friend of my father. My father had a discussion with me about
using a little bit of it and putting the rest away, not squandering
it. My parents, coming from Cuba, left a much better lifestyle to
come here and start over, because they didn't want to live under
Castro's Communist regime. I remember my father going from being
an executive at a well-known American company in Cuba to doing bookkeeping
at minimum wage, and then selling shoes during his lunch break to
supplement his income. So I was raised with a very strong work ethic.
I was 15, in high school, pumping gas until 11 at night. By the
time I was 17, I was basically the night manager of the gas station
-- closed up at night, took the money to the owner's house, and
I'd work six or seven days a week. When I became a police officer,
I continued with my studies, because I was 19 years old and my parents
weren't really happy with the idea of me being a cop. They asked
me to please keep studying in case I changed my mind, which was
the best advice anyone ever gave me. Because no matter what job
you have, after a while, it wasn't as glamorous. Because I didn't
quit studying, I had other opportunities.
|
