The Best Episodes of Judging Amy Season 1

#1 Fan Favorite
8.2/10(84 votes)
#1 - Pilot
S1:E19/19/1999
Amy Madison Gray struggles to adjust to the new circumstances in her life as she separates from her husband and becomes a single mother to her young daughter, Lauren; moves from Manhattan to Hartford, CT to live with her opinionated mother Maxine, a retired social worker; and starts a new career as a superior court judge in family court. The first case on her docket, the placement of a child abandoned by a drug addicted mother, introduces her to the shortcomings and political realities of the juvenile justice system.
Director:James Hayman
Writers:Barbara Hall, Bill D'Elia, John Tinker
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Director:James Hayman
Writers:Barbara Hall, Bill D'Elia, John Tinker
6.9/10(65 votes)
#2 - Short Calendar
S1:E29/21/1999
Short calendar day drops 54 cases on Amy's docket, and the long day stretches into night when she's forced to make a life and death decision about the fate of an abused child; Maxine decides to return to work; Amy's confrontation with Lauren's obnoxious new teacher leaves her with yet another responsibility in an already jam-packed calendar.
Director:Jack Bender
Writers:Nicole Yorkin, Dawn Prestwich
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Director:Jack Bender
Writers:Nicole Yorkin, Dawn Prestwich
7.5/10(64 votes)
#3 - Trial By Jury
S1:E39/28/1999
Sitting in for a friend who's undergoing chemotherapy, Amy presides over her first jury trial and clashes with a former law school classmate who represents the parents of a murdered girl who are suing the parents of her teenaged killer; Maxine shops for a new car for the first time in her life; Vincent feels that Maxine doesn't take his writing seriously after she interrupts his work to ask him to babysit the six rambunctious first graders attending Lauren's sleepover party.
Director:James Hayman
Writer:Natalie Chaidez
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Director:James Hayman
Writer:Natalie Chaidez
7.7/10(54 votes)
#4 - Victim Soul
S1:E410/5/1999
Amy must determine if a comatose boy who is believed to have healing powers is being abused by his grandmother; Maxine clashes with her supervisor over taking an underfed little girl away from her anorexic mother; Vincent begins a relationship with an older woman.
Director:James Frawley
Writer:Barbara Hall
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Director:James Frawley
Writer:Barbara Hall
7.0/10(61 votes)
#5 - Last Tango in Hartford
S1:E510/12/1999
A death threat, coupled with Maxine's disapproval, puts a crimp in Amy's blossoming relationship with Tracy; Vincent begins to feel like he's Chris's pet project; Maxine rekindles an old friendship; Amy officiates at Donna's wedding to a convict; Maxine helps a second generation foster teenager keep her infant son out of the system.
Director:James Frawley
Writers:Nicole Yorkin, Dawn Prestwich
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Director:James Frawley
Writers:Nicole Yorkin, Dawn Prestwich
8.0/10(52 votes)
#6 - Witch Hunt
S1:E610/19/1999
A woman fights for custody of her son after the boy's father claims that her practice of the Wiccan religion makes her an unfit mother; Vincent gets an agent; in the week before Halloween, Lauren gets spooked by some older boys; Amy confronts narrow-minded attitudes at the P.T.A. meeting; in direct defiance of Susie's orders, Maxine pursues the search for a boy missing from a family with a history of child abuse.
Director:Ken Olin
Writer:Unknown
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Director:Ken Olin
Writer:Unknown

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The 20 BEST Episodes of Judging Amy

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8.5/10(77 votes)
#7 - An Impartial Bias
S1:E711/2/1999
Maxine fights to keep a deaf boy in the care of his teenage brother after they are orphaned; Bruce disagrees with Amy's decision in an interracial adoption case; Vincent gets a job teaching writing; Donna seeks Amy's assistance in getting a conjugal visit with Oscar; Vincent learns something surprising about his father.
Director:James Hayman
Writer:David W. Zucker
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Director:James Hayman
Writer:David W. Zucker
7.7/10(51 votes)
#8 - Near Death Experience
S1:E811/9/1999
Amy presides over the sentencing hearing of an emotionally immature teenager convicted of the murder of a ten year old girl during a drive-by shooting; Vincent is shot when he attempts to rescue a woman who's being assaulted; Maxine investigates a mother who claims that she was abducted by aliens; a divorced couple asks Amy to resolve a dispute about the care of their five-day-old son.
Director:Kevin Dowling
Writer:Unknown
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Director:Kevin Dowling
Writer:Unknown
7.3/10(45 votes)
#9 - The Persistence of Tectonics
S1:E911/23/1999
Amy juggles preparing Thanksgiving dinner, being on call, and coping with a surprise announcement from Michael; Gillian asks Maxine for help in financing another in-vitro procedure; Amy presides over an adoption in which the biological father shows up at the last minute to claim his child; Hillary tries to settle the score with Vincent during a Thanksgiving party at Alan's; Amy sentences two boys convicted of animal cruelty.
Director:Unknown
Writer:Unknown
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Director:Unknown
Writer:Unknown
8.1/10(47 votes)
#10 - Crowded House
S1:E1011/30/1999
Amy hears the case of an extremely abused, mentally ill teenager who has stabbed a teacher; Vincent's agent finds him a publisher who will sign him only if he completes another short story in the next four days; Maxine tries to help an overstressed young mother who is afraid that she will hurt her baby; Lauren strains Amy's patience as she waxes enthusiastically over Michael's girlfriend; Maxine faces a house full of her children for a week as Vincent moves back home to devote all his energies to writing, and Gillian takes a much-needed break from the strain that infertility has placed on her marriage; Vincent's short story inspires Gillian to return home to Peter and reconsider adoption.
Director:Martha Mitchell
Writer:Lyla Oliver
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Director:Martha Mitchell
Writer:Lyla Oliver
8.2/10(51 votes)
#11 - Presumed Innocent
S1:E1112/14/1999
Amy takes it personally when Stuart appeals her decision to overturn the jury's verdict; Maxine arrives at a creative solution in placing an extremely gifted teenager who chronically runs away from his foster placements; Donna becomes Vincent's new roommate; Amy must decide whether to remove a child from the care of a mother suspected of suffering from Munchausen by Proxy syndrome; after her verdict is upheld, Stuart asks Amy out on a date, and she royally disses him as she turns him down flat.
Director:James Hayman
Writer:Natalie Chaidez
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Director:James Hayman
Writer:Natalie Chaidez
7.8/10(46 votes)
#12 - Spoil the Child
S1:E121/11/2000
Amy threatens to remove a young boy from the custody of a father who asserts his right to beat his son regularly with a belt, leaving welts; Maxine becomes frustrated by her ever-increasing case load and a system that doesn't seem to care about the children it should be serving as she struggles to get placements for two orphaned and mentally ill siblings; Gillian and Peter begin the adoptive process; Vincent and Donna work out some roommate issues; Amy's assertiveness in dealing with a judge who disrupts her courtroom lands her a job offer; Donna turns to a reluctant Vincent for advice after her conjugal visit with Oscar goes badly; Lauren goes into a full-tilt brat meltdown when the dancing supply store runs out of her recital costume after Amy waits too long to order it; Amy stays up all night to make the costume after spurning Maxine's offer to help.
Director:Kristoffer Tabori
Writers:Nicole Yorkin, Dawn Prestwich
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Director:Kristoffer Tabori
Writers:Nicole Yorkin, Dawn Prestwich
8.2/10(44 votes)
#13 - Zero to Sixty
S1:E131/18/2000
Michael's insistence upon joint custody of Lauren after Amy requests an increase in child support payments dooms the divorce mediation process, and they each retain high-powered and aggressive attorneys; Maxine wants nothing to do with any celebration of her 60th birthday; Amy must decide whether a college senior should be charged as an adult for a fatal hit and run accident that occured when he was fifteen; Michael's attempt to win Vincent over to his side in the custody battle ends badly; Amy hears a father's petition which contests the divorce agreement requiring him to pay for his daughter's college education; Maxine deals with combative divorced parents who can't seem to manage a peaceful exchange of their three small children.
Director:Anita W. Addison
Writer:David Adam Silverman
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Director:Anita W. Addison
Writer:David Adam Silverman
8.1/10(43 votes)
#14 - Shaken, Not Stirred
S1:E142/8/2000
Amy must decide if a young boy accused of shaking his infant sister to death is guilty of murder; Maxine fights to keep a 10 year old girl away from her abusive stepfather; Vincent struggles with the effects of post-traumatic stress disorder; Amy finds herself in a sticky situation when she accepts a date with the father of one of Lauren's classmates, and then learns that he's a child advocacy attorney who's scheduled to appear in her court; Vincent gets better acquainted with Lisa.
Director:David Semel
Writer:Unknown
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Director:David Semel
Writer:Unknown
7.5/10(43 votes)
#15 - Culture Clash
S1:E152/15/2000
Amy is assigned to a Judicial Conduct Commission panel which will decide the fate of a judge accused of demanding sexual favors from a prostitute in exchange for a reduced sentence; Maxine faces a culture clash when she tries to help a Yemeni teenager who was stabbed after being accused of dishonoring her family; Amy presides over the case of a woman who fears that her ex-husband may have abducted their children; Vincent's book is published and reviewed by The New York Times; Evie moves in temporarily with Maxine and Amy, and proves to be quite a handful; Michael's parents come to visit Lauren, and rebuff Amy's attempts to discuss the divorce.
Director:Jack Bender
Writer:Unknown
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Director:Jack Bender
Writer:Unknown
8.1/10(47 votes)
#16 - The Wee Hours
S1:E162/22/2000
Amy gears up for the custody battle over Lauren; Vincent takes a job at the local newspaper to help him overcome a severe case of writer's block; Amy suffers from a bad bout of insomnia that's coupled with some interesting dreams in the few hours that she's able to sleep; Maxine investigates why a boy from a loving family persists in sleepwalking far from home; Amy decides the fate of a teenaged athlete when her parents disagree on how her gymnastics training is affecting her life; Lauren and Amy have an ongoing battle over bedtime; Amy must decide if she'll allow the children of combative parents to be represented by their own attorney.
Director:James Hayman
Writer:Hart Hanson
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Director:James Hayman
Writer:Hart Hanson
7.7/10(44 votes)
#17 - Drawing the Line
S1:E172/29/2000
Amy must decide if a brain-injured woman is fit to be a mother; Maxine discovers that a teenaged client is being abused by his therapist; Leisha meets Amy, and faces her ire for piercing Lauren's ears without permission; Vincent and Maxine clash over his journalism career; Amy faces a class of insufferable law students when she's asked to teach a seminar at Yale; Donna takes modeling herself after Amy a bit too far when she begins to show up for work dressed and coiffed exactly like her mentor; it's all bark and no bite when Amy decides to dismiss the case of a drug dealer sniffed out by a four-legged member of the neighborhood watch.
Director:Jack Bender
Writer:Lyla Oliver
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Director:Jack Bender
Writer:Lyla Oliver
7.7/10(46 votes)
#18 - Human Touch
S1:E183/21/2000
Amy presides over a custody case between a young girl's stepfather and her biological father, whose severe case of Obsessive Compulsive Disorder may interfere with his parenting ability; after an unsuccessful experiment with day trading puts holes in her financial situation, Maxine has difficulty fixing the holes in her roof; the court reporter from hell, who is also Donna's nemesis, is assigned to Amy's courtroom; Maxine uncovers systematic fraud at D.C.F. that leads directly to Susie's desk; Amy realizes that she needs to assume more of the financial burden at home after she and Peter quarrel over their mother's monetary predicament; Vincent and Lisa work through their relationship fears; Amy orders D.C.F. to cut through the bureaucracy and the paperwork so that Croatian refugees can find a home and be reunited with their son.
Director:Martha Mitchell
Writer:Unknown
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Director:Martha Mitchell
Writer:Unknown
7.7/10(44 votes)
#19 - The Out-of-Towners
S1:E194/18/2000
Heeding the request of counsel to deliver one of her ""rants"" at a sentencing hearing, Amy lectures a young drug dealer whose mother has made tremendous sacrifices to provide him with a better life; much to Peter's dismay, Maxine accepts a date from an attractive man she meets at the diner; Amy gets ""backwater detail"" subbing for another judge, and travels with Bruce to a small town to hear a case centered on the misdiagnosis and overmedication of its teenage boys; as her abductor's case comes to trial, Lisa and Vincent argue when her fears for the possibility of acquittal, and thus her safety, increase; pending the outcome of an investigation, Susie is back at work after a one week paid suspension and, over Maxine's objections, sets in motion a chain of events which eventually leads to the death of a young mother; Amy and Bruce have divergent reactions when confronted with intolerance during their trip; Maxine unsuccessfully tries to resign, and ends up being blackmailed into acceptin
Director:Unknown
Writers:David W. Zucker, Hart Hanson
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Director:Unknown
Writers:David W. Zucker, Hart Hanson
8.0/10(53 votes)
#20 - The God Thing
S1:E205/2/2000
Amy decides the fate of two teenagers arrested for possession of a date rape drug; Greta returns to work with a newfound appreciation of her spirituality, causing Amy to question her own; while working on the case of a neglectful mother, Maxine discovers that management isn't all that it's cracked up to be, especially when it gets in the way of her time with Jared; Donna ropes Amy into having coffee with Leisha, who in turn ropes Amy into going shopping for bathing suits; Vincent breaks up with Lisa after she perjures herself on the stand; after Donna delivers some very sad news, Amy seeks some answers, and some consolation, at Bruce's church.
Director:Kevin Dowling
Writer:Karen Hall
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Director:Kevin Dowling
Writer:Karen Hall
7.8/10(50 votes)
#21 - Gray vs. Gray
S1:E215/9/2000
Maxine gets a new supervisor at D.C.F.; Donna becomes stressed when Oscar's attorneys petition to have his conviction reversed; Amy and Maxine are at odds over having Maxine's terminally ill client testify in a case that Amy is hearing; Vincent counsels Donna against telling Oscar about her attraction to other men, and reassures her that her feelings are normal.
Director:James Hayman
Writer:Unknown
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Director:James Hayman
Writer:Unknown
7.6/10(48 votes)
#22 - Not With a Whimper
S1:E225/16/2000
After going on the date from hell with a Yale professor, Amy has one last fling with Michael the day their divorce becomes final; Maxine returns a stowaway boy to his mother; when Donna and Vincent persuade a reluctant Evie to deliver her baby in the hospital instead of home, she insists that they, instead of Gillian and Peter, act as her birthing coaches; Amy assigns a unique condition of probation to a bright and feisty teenager; Maxine fears that she's contracted Alzheimer's after suffering cognitive lapses, and is relieved to discover that it's only a concussion sustained when she bumped her head on a piece of furniture; Evie's son is born, surprising the family with his interracial heritage.
Director:David Platt
Writers:Nicole Yorkin, Dawn Prestwich
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Director:David Platt
Writers:Nicole Yorkin, Dawn Prestwich
7.8/10(52 votes)
#23 - Blast From the Past
S1:E235/23/2000
Vincent is injured in an explosion when he attempts to dissuade an old friend threatening to blow up the court house after he loses custody of his sons in Amy's court; Charles accuses Maxine of being a golddigger; Donna discovers that she's pregnant; after Ian files a complaint against Amy and Bruce, alleging that they have an improper relationship, Bruce transfers to another courtroom for the duration of the investigation; Maxine's efforts to reunite a mother with her children are sabotaged by her client.
Director:James Hayman
Writer:Barbara Hall
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Director:James Hayman
Writer:Barbara Hall