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Joanne Alper, Retired Judge, 17th Judicial Circuit Court, Arlington, certified Mediator Supreme Court of Virginia, and trailblazer for women in the legal profession on private mediation in divorce cases ~\n\n"But it's still more humane than throwing it all up in front of a judge who's a stranger. This way these people make their own decisions. So I've become a huge fan of the process."\n\nHon. Joanne Alper (Ret.), Trailblazer, and host Andy Ockershausen in studio interview\n\nAndy Ockershausen:\tThis is Andy Ockershausen and this is Our Town. I have greatest, greatest news for you that has ... I hope you're regular listeners because you're gonna hear from a unique, wonderful, special individual and a very dear friend, who happens to be a sitting judge, but she doesn't sit any more because she's too busy now. But Joanne Alper is a legend in Northern Virginia legal cycle. \nJoanne Alper:\tThank you.\nAndy Ockershausen: What do you think of that?\nJoanne Alper:\tWell, that's ... I never thought of myself as a legend.\nAndy Ockershausen:\tBut you are. Think about it, Joanne. You're a trailblazer. Maybe it wasn't meant to be that way, but isn't that not the way it's happened?\nTrailblazing\nJoanne Alper:\tTo some extent, yes. As a woman lawyer starting out in the mid-70s, it was like being a trailblazer. There were very few of us. You could probably count on the fingers of one and a half hands how many women there were.\nAndy Ockershausen:\tThe only other female I ever knew in the law was Betty Thompson, who is a very dear friend of yours, I know.\nJoanne Alper:\tYes. Yes.\nBrooklyn Born\nAndy Ockershausen:\tBut you have a wonderful story about how you got started and we wanna hear that, but before that ... I didn't know you were born in Manhattan.\nJoanne Alper:\tBorn in Brooklyn, actually.\nAndy Ockershausen:\tOh, you were? But that's part of New York City, of course.\nJoanne Alper:\tYes.\nAndy Ockershausen:\tA lot of people don't realize it. They think it's another world. But, Joanne, and your dad and mom are New Yorkers?\nJoanne Alper:\tThat's right.\nAndy Ockershausen:\tAnd you're a native New Yorker? That's a great song, incidentally.\nJoanne Alper:\tI grew up in New York. I was a native New Yorker, but I've obviously lived a whole lot more of my life in Virginia than I ever lived in New York.\nAndy Ockershausen:\tWell, we consider that Virginia's . . . Our Town, you understand that, though?\nJoanne Alper:\tYes.\nAndy Ockershausen:\tSo even it's Arlington or Vienna, it's Our Town. And Joanne, you've lived that in Long Island with your parents.\nJoanne Alper:\tThat's right.\nG.I. Bill Benefits, Baby Boomers, and Growing Up in Valley Stream\nAndy Ockershausen:\tYour dad was in WWII, correct?\nJoanne Alper:\tYes. He was a veteran of World War II.\nAndy Ockershausen:\tSo he probably got the G.I. Bill?\nJoanne Alper:\tThat's right.\nAndy Ockershausen:\tWhen you think about it, you're too young. Janice in the military. She's too young. I lived through what the G.I. Bill meant to America. It was incredible.\nJoanne Alper:\tIt was. My dad-\nAndy Ockershausen:\tIt jump-started our country.\nJoanne Alper:\tMy dad grew up, his parents were immigrants from Russia. Came over in 1912 or '13. He was born here. Some of his older siblings were born in Russia. But he, by getting the G.I. Bill and having the money, he could have gone to college, but he met my mother and wanted to get married. So he took the benefits he had after a few years of living ...\n\tWhen I was about three years old, they bought a house out on Long Island in a new development that everyone in the neighborhood were G.I.s who were doing the same thing. So we were all about the same age, all baby boomers, sort of growing up together.\nAndy Ockershausen:\tVery even, correct? I mean, the whole neighborhood and the environment was even.\nJoanne Alper:\tExactly. It was amazing. In fact, as I said, we just had our 50th high school reunion two weeks ago, and just to see some of these people that I've know...