The nickname was meant to characterize the "judge's" severe and eccentric sentences dispensed to guilty parties on the program, known as "paybacks".
[1] Taped at a studio in Dallas, Texas, the courtroom series aired daily[1] and ran in first-run syndication from 2004 through 2009.
Some examples of the unusual rulings issued by Judge Akim were: a man who impregnated a girl was ordered to wear a fatsuit for a month, a landlord whose apartments were not suitable for living was ordered to write a new policy while sitting in a truck filled with cow manure, etc.
Akim "The Strongarm" Anastopoulo was, at the time of the series debut, a personal injury lawyer who had been practicing law in his hometown of Charleston, South Carolina, since 1986.
In lieu of the traditional judge's gavel, Extreme Akim wielded a baseball bat embossed with the word "justice."
According to the show, the reason for the extreme nature of the sentencing was because the America's justice system was hopeless and unfair.