The following lists all characters, major and minor, who are/were judges in the Law & Order franchise.
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Danielle Melnick
Appearances: Law & Order | Law & Order: Criminal Intent
Other Appearances: Chicago Justice
Played By: Tovah Feldshuh
McCoy's friend and rival. Zealous, crusading attorney, who often takes on cases to make political points. Appeared 13 times, between seasons 2-17.
- Call-Back: After "Open Season," where she is shot in The Tag, she disappears for several seasons. When she returns, she's using a cane.
- Characterization Marches On: In her first few appearances, she's just another of the show's revolving door of Amoral Attorneys who will work for anyone with the money to pay them. She didn't start being portrayed as a crusader until the episode "Hot Pursuit."
- Crusading Lawyer: Melnick is a civil rights extremist — she even defended a neo-Nazi who had shot a personal friend, because the principles were that important to her. Only problem is, they weren't as important to the defendant...
- Well-Intentioned Extremist: ... who asked her to send messages to the outside world, in defiance of a communication ban. She did, believing that the ban was cruel and unusual punishment. The messages turned out to be the next target for her client's associates to kill. Oops.
- Laser-Guided Karma: Borders strongly into Disproportionate Retribution, but she breached a court's order of a communication ban which caused her client to be able to assassinate district attorneys. McCoy manages to get her (former) client to drop the conspiracy charges on her because she didn't realize what she was causing — only for her to get shot shortly thereafter by another associate of said client who presumably thought she ratted him out. She barely survives.
- My God, What Have I Done?: Once McCoy hit her with the results of her above actions, she immediately realizes just how badly she messed up and how screwed her career would be for it. It doesn't stop her from trying to do her job, though, which ultimately proved the wrong choice to stick to.
- Never My Fault: When arrested for the above actions, she insisted that she was right, the judge was wrong, and gets extremely mad at McCoy for screwing her over by prosecuting her for a crime she did commit. This goes as far as attempting to guilt trip him multiple times about "screwing over a friend", even after he presses her to begrudgingly admit she messed up.
- Too Dumb to Live: Narrowly averted, as she still gets shot for her association with Preuss in "Open Season" under assumption that she sold him out, but this ultimately only gets her crippled.
- Worthy Opponent: She and McCoy are on much friendlier terms than he usually is with defense attorneys. Doesn't stop her from acting like It's Personal when he realizes she's crossed the line in "Open Season", however.
Morris Torledsky
Appearances: Law & Order | Law & Order: Trial by Jury
Played By: David Lipman
- "Your client is getting dangerously close to the textbook definition of chutzpah!"
An arraigning judge who enlivens his boring job with witty comments to his judgments.
Gary Feldman
Appearances: Law & Order
Played By: Cliff Gorman
A judge with political ambitions, who wanted to base his campaign around targeting drunk drivers. He collaborated with McCoy to hide evidence in a case involving a drunk driver that killed three people. When McCoy backed out of the scheme, he vowed revenge and went on to run against Adam Schiff. He was backed by Carl Anderton ('Burned'), who wanted revenge on Schiff for his own reasons. Appeared 3 times in Season 8.
William Wright
Appearances: Law & Order | Law & Order: Trial by Jury
Played By: Ron McLarty
A judge whose defining characteristic was disagreeing with McCoy on everything. Notable appearances included setting aside a 'guilty' verdict for three boys convicted of raping a mentally disabled girl ('Damaged') and setting aside a 'guilty' verdict when McCoy convicted a gun dealer of murder due to his unethical business practices ('Gunshow'). In his final episode, 'Dissonance,' Nora Lewin threatened that she would destroy him unless he judged the trial fairly. Appeared in 4 episodes between seasons 8-11.
- Alliterative Name: William Wright.
- Depending on the Writer Whether Wright is reasonable or not varies drastically depending on the episode that he's in. In "Gunshow", the episode takes his side, indicating that the gun dealer, while evil, hadn't actually violated any law, and that McCoy was basically engaging in prosecutorial misconduct by trying to get him convicted for being a bad guy, not for violating any actual statute. In "Damaged", on the other hand, Wright is shown as a heartless and stupid jerk who refuses to even consider that the mentally disabled girl could have been raped, even though McCoy provided ample evidence that the girl was incapable of consenting to sex.
- "Not If They Enjoyed It" Rationalization: Wright's reasoning for why he wouldn't reverse his decision to set aside the guilty verdict in "Damaged".
- What the Hell, Hero?: Calls out the jury for convicting the three boys of rape.
Janice Goldberg
Appearances: Law & Order | Law & Order: Criminal Intent
Played By: Fran Lebowitz
A sarcastic and outspoken arraignment judge. She makes 12 appearances between seasons 11-17, and one in season five of Criminal Intent.
- Deadpan Snarker: Has a dry one-liner for pretty much every case.
- Seen It All: She frequently displays this attitude throughout her cases.
- The Unapologetic: Refuses to back down or apologize when a defense attorney wants to force her to recuse from the case on the grounds that she's a vocal opponent of the defendant's father, a Senator.
Lena Petrovsky
Appearances: Law & Order: Special Victims Unit
Played By: Joanna Merlin
- Iconic Sequel Character: She is one of the prominent judges on the show, but didn't make her first appearance until Season 2.
- Long Bus Trip: Hasn't been seen since Season 12.
- Reasonable Authority Figure: She has a reputation for being tough but fair. While she has frequently shown favor towards the Manhattan District Attorney's Office, she has often sought to curb the DA's power when she felt it was being abused. She is also known overexerting her authority in telling the DA's office how they should prosecute cases.
- Worthy Opponent: Despite the professional animosity between her and Alex, she respects her resilience.
Elizabeth Donnelly
Appearances: Law & Order: Special Victims Unit
Played By: Judith Light
- First-Name Basis: Frequently goes from "Your Honor" or "Judge Donnelly" to "Elizabeth" when speaking with Alex and Casey on more personal matters.
- Cool Old Lady: Light's not that old, but Donnelly's on-off appearances make it clear that she is completely no-nonsense, fierce, and intelligent.
- Deadpan Snarker: Frequently, especially when she's with Benson and Stabler.
- Iconic Sequel Character: She is one of the most prominent recurring characters on the show, but didn't make her first appearance until near the end of Season 3.
- It's Personal: Steps down from the bench for a case in Season 10's "Persona" due to her connection with the defendant (see Person as Verb below).
- Jerk with a Heart of Gold: Can occasionally slip into this at times.
- Long Bus Trip: Hasn't been seen since Season 12.
- Person as Verb: As revealed in "Persona", when she inadvertently facilitated a defendant's escape from authorities, a DA goofing up big time became known as "Doing a Donnelly".
- Reasonable Authority Figure: Is also respectful of the SVU.
Barry Moredock
Appearances: Law & Order: Special Victims Unit
Played By: John Cullum
- Amoral Attorney: An extremely rare positive portrayal. Moredock is known to defend clients he finds morally reprehensible, including Neo-Nazis, child murderers, and creators of simulated child pornography, all because he is a firm believer in the Constitution and the right to a fair trial.
- Anti-Villain: While he's a defense attorney, he's not a bad guy at all; he's shown to get along with former student Alex and, later, Casey quite well. His biggest concern is making sure his clients get a fair defense; specifically, he takes cases where he feels the defendants are having their constitutional rights violated. Even if he personally doesn't agree with their views, he maintains that everyone has rights under the law, and is willing to risk a contempt of court charge to stand up for his client's rights. The only thing really "bad" about him is that he's on the opposite side of the protagonists, and this eventually changes when he becomes a judge.
- Everyone Has Standards: Despite his questionable client list, he doesn't condone any of their actions but instead takes their cases due to his belief for all people to have a fair trial as a constitutional right.
- Friendly Enemy: Has worked with both Cabot and Novak on separate occasions and is a genuinely polite person.
- Graceful Loser: In his first appearance, he loses a case to Alex and graciously congratulates her on her victory, then cheerfully notes that there's still an appeal process.
- Heel–Face Turn: Downplayed. He's not much of a villain, even when serving as the defense for the side opposite the SVU team. However, when he becomes a judge, his antagonism with the detectives disappears entirely, alongside many of his more negative character traits.
- Reasonable Authority Figure: As a judge, he frequently has to throw out cases the SVU detectives bring before him due to circumstantial evidence or a lack of any real crime having been committed.
- Rules Lawyer: Very strict on his constitutional law interpretations.
- Smug Snake: Comes off this way at first. However, he does temper this with being a Graceful Loser, and being willing to admit when he's only defending his client due to a legal interest and does not approve of their actions personally. For example, when defending a Neo-Nazi who killed a black child (and wounded two others) on a playground:Casey: Have you had a conversation with him?Barry: Yes, and I find every word he spews morally repugnant. But his speech, despicable as it may be, doesn't entitle anyone to trample all over his constitutional rights, now, does it?
- "The Reason You Suck" Speech: Delivers an epic ass-ripping to Lionel Granger when the latter engages in some particularly shady legal tactics.
Former
Jamie Ross
