Kate Walsh Is Ready For Good Times As 'Bad Judge'

(CBS SF/AP) - Maybe "Bad Judge" is the wrong title.

She's actually a very good judge. Off the job, she's somewhat of a bad girl.

Played by San Jose-native Kate Walsh on this upcoming NBC sitcom, Judge Rebecca Wright is a clear break from the cool, polished Dr. Addison Montgomery she played for eight seasons on "Grey's Anatomy" and its spinoff, "Private Practice."

"She's a party girl," Walsh said, "and she happens to be really, really good at her job."

On a panel Sunday at the summer TV critics' meeting, Walsh argued that Wright's riotously let-her-hair-down style whenever she's off the bench is, in part, just her form of release from the pressures of her job.

She's the kind of woman "that we love to watch do things that we don't necessarily think the people in their position should do," added executive producer Anne Heche (who doesn't appear in the show).

"If I could, I would prefer `Bad-Ass Judge,'" joked fellow executive producer Liz Brixius (whose credits include Showtime's "Nurse Jackie," which stars Edie Falco as a "bad" nurse).

Walsh recalled TV's beloved Dr. Gregory House, a world-class physician with a tangled private life: "You were never waiting for that guy to get married and have kids. `I just wish he would settle down' - you never had that wish for him!"

Walsh seeks equal justice from viewers for her freewheeling female judge.

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