The contract lawsuit boils down to Rebel accusing CBS of withholding money owed to the talent agency through unfair accounting. Rebel receives 5 percent of the show’s net profits, but the company is complaining those profits are slim because it only receives the percentage after Sheindlin’s massive $40-plus million annual payday. CBS, however, argues that Rebel played no part in the creation or development of the show, and has already collected $20 million because it represents three producers who were connected to the show early on. Sheindlin explained in her videotaped testimony that Richard Lawrence, president of Rebel Entertainment Partners, should be happy with the money he’s already received. Especially since it has always been my view that Mr. Lawrence and Mr. Lyttle were in collusion right from the beginning, just as Mr. Lyttle was with Fred Fenster to screw the girls. "Mr. Lawrence should actually be kissing this right in Macy's window because my contract with CBS for more than a decade now does not include a last look, which means the following," she said. “Which means they can’t match another offer, which means I can produce this show myself for decades.” Sheindlin added that she could make an additional $20 million if she produced the show herself, but she doesn’t because, “How much can you eat?” 
 
 The judge then detailed her annual salary discussion with the CBS president, which always includes dinner at the Grill at the Alley and handing her boss (we use that term lightly) an envelope with what she wants, including her salary and any other demands for the crew and production. “CBS had no choice but to pay me what I wanted, because otherwise I could take it wherever I wanted to take it, or do it myself,” she said in a transcript obtained by The Hollywood Reporter. "We sit across the table, and I hand him the envelope and I say, 'Don't read it now, let's have a nice dinner. Call me tomorrow. You want it, fine. While weighing in on a legal dispute between CBS and Hollywood talent agency Rebel Entertainment Partners over disputed profits from Judge Judy, the reality show’s star revealed just how much power she has with the network. He continues: "As to the argument attempting to eliminate my client’s claim for breach of the covenant of good faith and fair dealing — i.e., by stating that CBS had a right to set Judy’s salary at any amount they wanted — that is an insult to every profit participant who has ever been involved in a show with CBS.
– Judge Judy's newly released testimony in a legal dispute between her network (CBS) and a talent agency is just about as awesome as you'd expect from the outspoken jurist. The dispute itself has quite a few ins and outs, with Vulture summing it up nicely: The talent agency gets 5% of Judge Judy's net profits, but only after CBS pays Judy her $47 million salary, so it's claiming to be underpaid; CBS, meanwhile, says the talent agency is actually overpaid since it had nothing to do with the creation or production of the show beyond representing three of the show's early producers. But Judy's testimony from 2016, which was just obtained by the Hollywood Reporter and published for the first time, is a must-read. In it, she describes her negotiation process with CBS every few years, which isn't actually a negotiation at all—it's just Judy getting what she wants. Her contract allows her to produce the show herself if she so desires, she explains in the testimony, and if she did that she'd actually make $20 million more. She doesn't, because "I like the uncomplicated life I lead," but the option is always there. So when it's negotiation time, she sits down with a CBS exec for dinner and hands him an envelope with her demands (salary and otherwise), and each time those demands are met. The one year a different exec tried to hand her his own envelope, she refused to even look at it because "this isn't a negotiation," as she told him. "'You want [the show], fine. Otherwise, I'll produce it myself.' That's the negotiation." She added that CBS has "no choice but to pay me what I [want]" and that the network's "back [is] to the wall," because "they've tried to find another Judy," but they can't. More from the testimony at THR.