Eugene Michael Hyman (born May 14, 1950) is an American retired judge, lawyer, and former police officer. Besides being a retired judge and former police officer, he now also serves as an expert witness in the field of domestic violence, in the criminal and civil courts.
Hyman served as judge for over twenty years, combining municipal and the Superior Court of Santa Clara County. He helped create juvenile domestic and family violence juvenile court in Santa Clara County, believed to be the first therapeutic court in the United States in the field of therapeutic jurisprudence. Hyman has presided over cases in the criminal, family, probate, civil, and delinquency divisions of the court. Hyman was elected to the Superior Court and took the oath of office on January 8, 1997. He served on the court until his retirement, after which he was succeeded by Shelyna V. Brown. He helped establish the Superior Court, which became the first American court to receive the United Nations Public Service Award. Hyman presided over the first family/juvenile violence court in the United States to focus exclusively on teenage victims and perpetrators.
Early life, education and career Hyman graduated from Matawan Regional High School in 1968.Past Inductees Matawan Regional High School Hall Of Fame/Alumni, Matawan Regional High School. Accessed November 17, 2021. "Eugene M. Hyman 1968 - Superior Court Judge" He graduated from Claremont Men's College with a Bachelor of Arts in sociology, graduating cum laude in 1972. He received his Juris Doctor degree from the Santa Clara University School of Law in 1977.
From 1972 to 1977, he served as a police officer with the Santa Clara Police Department and from 1979 to 1981 he was an Instructor at the Santa Clara County Peace Officer's Academy.Judge Hyman's Curriculum Vitae (PDF Version)
Legal career He was in private practice from 1979 to 1990 concentrating on personal injury litigation, workers' compensation law, and criminal law. For over a decade, he represented clients in workers' compensation law. His practice encompassed both civil and criminal proceedings, allowing him to gain extensive courtroom experience before his judicial appointment.
Alongside his legal practice, Hyman began teaching law at Santa Clara University School of Law for over 30 years. Throughout the 1980s and 1990s he taught Workers' Compensation Law, Law Office Management, Community Property Law, Juvenile Law, Domestic Violence Law, and California Post-Conviction Practice. His courses combined legal doctrine with practical courtroom experience and emphasized the interaction between legal institutions and social services.
Judicial career
1990 to present In 1990, Hyman was appointed to the Santa Clara County Municipal Court. In 1990, Hyman was appointed as a judge of the Municipal Court of Santa Clara County, California. During his six years on the municipal bench, he presided over criminal, civil, traffic, and misdemeanor matters while developing an interest in judicial practices that addressed the underlying causes of offending behavior rather than relying solely on traditional punitive sanctions. His courtroom management emphasized fairness, procedural integrity, and evidence-based decision-making, particularly in cases involving families, juveniles, and repeat offenders.
In 1997, following his election, Hyman became a judge of the Superior Court of California, County of Santa Clara, serving until his retirement in 2011. During his fourteen years on the superior court, he presided over juvenile, family, criminal, and collaborative justice assignments. His judicial work increasingly focused on domestic violence, child abuse, juvenile delinquency, adolescent relationship violence, and therapeutic interventions designed to reduce recidivism.
Unlike many judges whose work remained confined to courtroom adjudication, Hyman became actively involved in judicial policy development, interdisciplinary collaboration, and judicial education. His philosophy held that courts should function not only as institutions that resolve disputes but also as public institutions capable of reducing future violence through coordinated intervention involving law enforcement, educators, social workers, medical professionals, and community organizations.
Juvenile Domestic and Family Violence Court Hyman is best known for establishing the Santa Clara County Juvenile Domestic and Family Violence Court, regarded as one of the first specialized juvenile domestic violence courts in the United States. Developed during the late 1990s and early 2000s, the court addressed violence committed by adolescents against dating partners or family members through an integrated model combining judicial supervision with education, counseling, victim advocacy, and behavioral intervention.
Under Hyman's leadership, the court adopted a multidisciplinary approach that brought together prosecutors, defense attorneys, probation officers, educators, mental health professionals, victim advocates, batterer intervention specialists, and community organizations. Rather than emphasizing punishment alone, the court sought to promote offender accountability while reducing the likelihood of future violence through early intervention and rehabilitation.
The program incorporated judicial monitoring, mandatory participation in counseling and educational programs, individualized treatment plans, and close collaboration among agencies responsible for child welfare, education, probation, and victim services. Hyman argued that adolescence represented a critical period during which intervention could prevent violent behavioral patterns from continuing into adulthood.
The Santa Clara model attracted national and international attention and became the subject of academic research, judicial conferences, and policy discussions. It was later cited as an example of collaborative justice and problem-solving courts that addressed complex social problems through coordinated institutional responses rather than conventional adversarial proceedings.Governor Appoints Shelyna V. Brown to Santa Clara County Superior Court , Governor of California (December 27, 2011).
Domestic violence jurisprudence During his judicial tenure, Hyman became one of California's leading judicial authorities on domestic violence law. His decisions, lectures, publications, and judicial education programs focused on improving court responses to intimate partner violence, child abuse, elder abuse, stalking, and adolescent relationship violence.
Hyman frequently argued that traditional assumptions regarding why victims remained in abusive relationships often misunderstood the realities of domestic violence and could result in ineffective judicial decision-making.
International career after retirement (2011–present) Following his retirement from the Superior Court of California in 2011, Hyman embarked on an international career as a legal scholar, judicial educator, consultant, and expert on domestic violence, juvenile justice, therapeutic jurisprudence, and collaborative justice. Building on more than two decades of judicial experience, he advised governments, courts, universities, international organizations, and judicial education institutes throughout North America, Europe, Australia, New Zealand, and the Caribbean. His post-retirement work focused on improving judicial responses to family violence through evidence-based policy, interdisciplinary collaboration, and judicial education.
One of Hyman's earliest international appointments came in 2013, when he served as an International Juvenile Law Expert for the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) in Belarus. As part of a judicial modernization initiative, he collaborated with international legal experts in reviewing proposals concerning court organization and juvenile justice reform. Hyman prepared a comprehensive review of juvenile justice policy and judicial administration, identifying institutional reforms consistent with international legal standards on children's rights. He subsequently travelled to Minsk, where he presented his findings during a roundtable attended by judges, government officials, United Nations representatives, and legal scholars.
In 2014, Hyman was appointed consultant to the Juvenile Justice Reform Project of the Organisation of Eastern Caribbean States (OECS), an initiative funded by the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) and administered by the National Center for State Courts. Working with governments across Antigua and Barbuda, Dominica, Grenada, Saint Kitts and Nevis, Saint Lucia, and Saint Vincent and the Grenadines, he reviewed judicial training materials and advised policymakers on juvenile court administration, rehabilitation programs, restorative justice, and youth violence prevention. His recommendations emphasized balancing accountability with rehabilitation while strengthening collaboration between courts, educators, mental health professionals, and community agencies.
Australia became the principal focus of Hyman's international work during the following decade. Beginning in the early 2010s, he developed long-standing collaborations with Australian universities, judicial institutes, police agencies, legal aid organizations, and state governments on domestic and family violence reform. In 2015, he appeared as an expert witness before Victoria's Royal Commission into Family Violence, where he provided evidence concerning intervention orders, specialist domestic violence courts, offender accountability, and judicial management of high-risk family violence cases. Drawing upon his experience establishing the Santa Clara County Juvenile Domestic and Family Violence Court, Hyman advocated coordinated responses involving courts, police, victim advocates, and treatment providers.
Hyman also served as a consultant to the Australian Institute of Judicial Administration (AIJA) during the development of the National Domestic and Family Violence Bench Book, providing comparative analysis of American and Australian legal practice, reviewing draft chapters, and advising on judicial education, victim safety, risk assessment, and evidence-based intervention. The Bench Book subsequently became Australia's principal online judicial resource on domestic and family violence.
Between 2015 and 2020, Hyman lectured widely in Australia, delivering judicial education and professional training on domestic violence courts, therapeutic jurisprudence, coercive control, implicit bias, and multidisciplinary approaches to family violence. He spoke at programs organized by judicial, legal, academic, and law-enforcement organizations, including the Australasian Institute of Judicial Administration, Bond University, the University of Melbourne, and Victoria Legal Aid.
His academic involvement in Australia culminated in his appointment as Adjunct Associate Professor at the University of Canberra School of Law, where he served for three months in early 2019.while also holding the position of Director of Professional Outreach. In these roles, Hyman contributed to undergraduate legal education, professional engagement, curriculum development, and research concerning domestic violence law, therapeutic jurisprudence, and legal reform. He collaborated with Australian legal scholars on projects relating to family violence intervention, trauma-informed judicial practice, and interdisciplinary legal education.