Judge Judy’s Bailiff Byrd Explains How a Letter Got Him the Job

Sometimes kindness can lead to a big break. 

Petri Hawkins-Byrd — best known for his role as the bailiff Officer Byrd on Judge Judy — opened up on the July 20 episode of Nostalgia Tonight with Joe Sibilia about how he ended up being Judge Judy Sheindlin’s right-hand man on her TV courtroom show for over two decades. 

The 67-year-old New York native explained that he was always interested in a career in entertainment and loved doing impressions, but “my mother was one of those mothers that’s like go to school, get a good job.” He became a court officer at Manhattan Family Court, where he was sometimes assigned to Sheindlin’s courtroom. He worked there for five years. 

“Every month, you would come into the locker room, you would look up on the list, just find out where you’re gonna be assigned the following month,” he said. “… The one that always caught my eye, the one that I always had the best time with was when Judge Sheindlin.” He called her a “pistol” and said that, like her persona on TV, “she didn’t take no stuff.” 

“She just moved through the calendar at lightning speed. It was almost like working with Joan Rivers,” Hawkins-Byrd said. When he was assigned to her for a month, the other court officers thought it was a bad assignment, but he told them, “No, I like her.”

“It was actually a delight to work for her and to watch her work,” he said. 

Hawkins-Byrd eventually left law enforcement and moved to California, where he found a job as a high school counselor. One day, he was reading “Liz Smith’s gossip column,” which he loved because it reminded him of “New York and the entertainment industry in New York,” when he noticed “it says they were developing a TV show for her.” 

“I was all excited, and I decided to write a letter to her to congratulate her on her good fortune, and I said the usual, congratulations, and it couldn’t happen to a more deserving person,” he remembered. 

Then he added, “P.S. If you ever need a bailiff, I still look good in uniform.” He faxed her the letter but assumed he wouldn’t hear from her.

“About three weeks after receiving the letter, she contacted me,” Hawkins-Byrd said. She had asked his former colleagues from Manhattan Family Court for his number. 

“She thanked me for my congratulations to her, and she said, ‘You were kidding at the end of your letter about needing a bailiff, but we do,’ ” he said. “We tried it with a regular actor, and it’s an unscripted show, and he didn’t quite know how I operate. And so, we’re looking for somebody else.” 

“She said, ‘And as I remember, you’re kinda crazy,’ because I used to do impersonations and stuff in front of her,” he said. “And I said, ‘Well, I’m still kinda crazy.’ ”

“And she said, ‘Well, if you’re crazy enough to try this with me, I’ll recommend you for the job,’ ” he said. He sent a headshot. “And that was it. I sent it down there. They flew me down, interviewed me, and the rest, as they say, is history.”

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Hawkins-Byrd was hired and remained Judge Judy’s right-hand man for all 25 seasons of the show, from 1996 to 2021, when she decided to end it. When Sheindlin returned to TV with Judy Justice that fall, Hawkins-Byrd was initially dismayed that he was not included. He now serves as bailiff on Amazon’s Tribunal Justice, created by Sheindlin.