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Called to the witness stand is a 21-year-old man, the only one of six witnesses who came forward to police. In a world where people are killed over trifles, it can be very dangerous to testify in court. It is not uncommon for witnesses to fail to appear—or even to be murdered before they get there. (In response to death threats, the municipal judges have been instructed to pull the drapes in their offices, and Moore carries a handgun.)

Yet this witness is as solid as the defendant is tremulous, answering "yeah" to most questions and holding firm in the face of cross-examination. In the end, this hearing, too, is continued, because a second victim, allegedly shot in the hand, has never come forward. There's something Dickensian about the whole courtroom enterprise, with its multiple plots and susceptibility to melodrama, coincidence and happenstance. The incidents that bring people into court make Moore acutely aware of how suddenly life can take an unexpected turn. Even the assignment of judges is done at random, now with a computer, but previously with a sort of roulette wheel.

Moore is known for taking every opportunity to nudge, even push, offenders in a positive direction. That could mean ordering an evaluation for drug and psychological problems followed by in-patient treatment. But often the offender is a healthy young man in his 20s whose mother, says Moore, "is going out to work while he's sitting all day looking at cable TV." As a condition of probation, Moore can order someone to get a GED or, with the help of the probation department, to find employment. "McDonald's!' is the reaction he often gets, to which he responds, "Yes, McDonald's—or go out and find a better job." Often the offender's mother can be seen, seated in the gallery, nodding her head in thanks.

ON THE JOB: Judge Jimmie Moore '72 explains a point of law to Marc Holloway, left, a Columbia University student from Philadelphia who was one of two interns working with Moore last spring.

When he had his own business, Moore trained an 18-year-old department store clerk, who had never been to college, as a paralegal. Today he works at a major law firm, making upwards of $100,000. That gave Moore an idea for going far beyond the court system to help people find their own path to prosperity and gratifying work. "There are a lot of ways to segue into a profession that aren't traditional," he says, and he has founded two programs at Eastern University in Philadelphia that do just that.

He both directs and teaches in the first program, which enables highly motivated students to earn a paralegal diploma in one year. Designed to help the unemployed, under-employed, and workers in transition, the program draws some of its students from nontraditional sources like back-to-work programs for women on welfare. Others, like Alice Ogletree, an executive in a Philadelphia nonprofit and a former business owner, already have a college degree. Ogletree and 30-year-old Kevin Sweeper both completed the program last summer and hope to go on to law school. Sweeper was particularly inspired by a course he took with Moore. "When you have a judge who knows your work telling you that you can reach your goal," says Sweeper, "that really builds up your confidence." Of the 20 or so participants who started the intensive program in 2007, 12 or 13 made it through the year of Friday night and weekend classes.

In the fall, the program was expanded to train legal secretaries as well, and a second program was established to provide similar training for ex-offenders. Moore has received a grant to study the feasability of a third initiative, Work Green Solutions, designed to provide "green collar" jobs for the underemployed as well as recent college graduates. Its first project will be the production of biodiesel from used cooking oil.

It's hard to imagine how Moore accomplishes so much, and especially with his unorthodox sleeping schedule. (He gets up to do legal work every night from 2 to 4 a.m.) But it is easy to see what motivates him. He has not only reached many of his own goals, he's watched his children do the same—his son is an attorney and his daughter, who has an M.B.A., is a recruiter for an accounting firm. Now at an age when many successful professionals start to think about easing back, Moore seems to be doing the opposite. "He's reached some mega milestones in his life," notes Agnes Ogletree, "and yet he's always trying to look back, to reach out and help others. That's the real core of who he is." ~

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