I felt I could affect more people around the country than I could a local city.” He says his decision to do the show in the first place was because he “felt on a national level, if street youth and single mothers would see me every day empower them and inspire them. He is very much involved in Michigan activism and outreach, be it donating to help the Flint water crisis or building a community center.

“My sole objective in life is to be able to inspire the people I left behind to overcome their obstacles.” “I can identify better than most judges with the plight of the litigants because I’ve lived the life of almost every litigant that comes before me,” Mathis says. He currently provides legal advice to over three million listeners on “The Steve Harvey Morning Show” and also on his website, his judging style, which is peppered with dad jokes as much as it is catchphrases (“Start with you! ” “You’re talking contemptuous!”), is opinionated with no patience for nonsense. He has been recognized for his efforts by numerous newspapers, magazines, and television networks, and has appeared on such shows as The Tonight Show with Jay Leno, The Today Show, Larry King Live, and The Ellen DeGeneres Show. Judge Mathis has received numerous awards and keys to the city from government officials and is the recipient of honorary doctorates from both Florida A&M University and Eastern Michigan University.

In his efforts to reach out to youth and ex-offenders both in and out of the courtroom, Judge Mathis opened a community center in his hometown of Detroit and has assisted thousands of youth with his nonprofit agency Young Adults Asserting Themselves (Y.A.A.T.), an agency that provides career, business start-up, and job opportunities, as well as job training and college enrollment assistance. After graduating from college in 1983, he joined the staff of Detroit City Councilman Clyde Cleveland and continued to work as an advocate for equal justice with Reverend Jesse Jackson’s Rainbow PUSH, where he currently serves as Chairman, and also a national board member of the NAACP and the Morehouse School of Medicine. Judge Mathis’s public service career began in college where he led Free South Africa and voter registration campaigns on campus.

Judge mathis