SHE MAY be the presiding judge on the syndicated show “Divorce Court,” but Lynn Toler had to pass more than the bar to get there.
She and her sister were expected to be doctors.
“It was never ‘if,’ it was ‘when’ you become a doctor. I didn’t know there was an option other than that,” she says over coffee at a hotel restaurant in Pasadena.
“I went to Harvard because that was expected and that’s just how we did business. My sister went to Dartmouth because that was expected. She’s a doctor. I remember the conversation with my parents when I told them I wasn’t going to be a doctor. You would’ve thought I shot the Pope. It was such a small price to pay for a lifetime of I do what I want. It wasn’t a great vision on my part, I knew nothing else,” she says.
In fact, she spent her years at Harvard goofing off, quit one major in college and was about to leave another when her dad reminded her that if she faded out of graduate school, so did the money.
Not one to argue
She grew up with a brilliant but bi-polar father whose condition was worsened by his drinking and a mother who cleverly managed his mental illness.
Toler’s dad was a lawyer, so after she quit pre-med, she switched from English to the law.
“The dumbest thing I ever did was go to Harvard and learned nothing,” she said. “I never went to class. I was partying. I apologized to my parents because they paid for it. I went there and did nothing. Later I studied for the bar and am a quick study.”
But she didn’t like law school.
“I was a very shy person and don’t like to argue,” she says. “I thought, ‘What am I doing here?’ I was a great litigator because I can convince people of things. But I was a terrible negotiator. Don’t push and shove very well. I think I was a good judge because I’m relatively intelligent, I’m people-smart, I can read people fairly well, I knew the law and I gave a damn.”
Toler was 33, out of school when she went to work for a law firm.
“I was married, had a husband with four stepsons, I’d just had a baby and was working 60 hours a week at a law firm and I was about to blow my brains out,” she says.
“The judge in the city retired after 18 years and I said, ‘The courthouse is 16 blocks from my house, judges set their own schedule. That’s my job. I’m going to get that job.’ “
Campaigning with kids
She went door-to-door with her 10 month-old son on her hip campaigning for the job in municipal court in Cleveland Heights, Ohio.
“The guy I was running against had been a lawyer 12 years longer than I had been alive,” she laughs. “Everybody thought he was going to get the job. Nobody knew me. I was just a kid. And I was a black Republican. Who votes for a black Republican? And it was a Democratic district.”
After three recounts Toler won by a measly three votes. She spent eight years presiding over minor cases there. But she found it disheartening.
“I took work home with me. ‘Did I sentence him right?’ ‘He’s going to get out, is he going to hurt her?’ My husband started calling me the Night Stalker because I’d be up all night walking around the hallways thinking,” she said. “If you take your job seriously you worry about that kind of thing.”
One day she found a while-you-were-out pink slip on her desk. It was from 20th Television asking her to do a law show.
“A month later I had a job for ‘Power of Attorney.’ It didn’t last very long,” Toler said. “Then I was a retired judge working by assignment for five years and then when the ‘Divorce Court’ slot opened they called and said, ‘Can you come?’ I said, ‘Sure.’ ”
Toler’s never been divorced but admits even her marriage has endured its tough times.
“We came to a crossroads two years ago, and I came into the marriage a frightened person. He came into the marriage an angry person. I spent my whole marriage trying not to have an argument. One day in the bathroom I decided I wasn’t giving in. And it was 18 months of the rockiest road I’ve ever traveled,” she sighs.
“And my mother came into town, looked at me and said, ‘At the end of the day, Lynn, you’re too old for this (stuff). You taught him he should always get his way. That was your doing. What you need to do now is to re-educate him.’ She said, ‘He’s not happy’ …
“And she told me what to do. ‘Don’t get excited. Don’t cry. Stand your ground. State your case. Respect his position but respect your position.’ And we got through it.”
