Comments on: Law Clerk Disqualification

By: Maryland Conservatarian

Maryland Conservatarian — Thu, 23 Feb 2006 21:51:01 +0000

This is all much ado about nothing….but can we look at the propriety of so-called legal ethics experts continually harping on the same Justices?….That Deborah Rhode and Stephen Gillers are critical of Justice Alito (and, for that matter, CJ Roberts) is such a dog-bite-man occurrence. And never, when I read their ruminations on another supposed ethical mis-step, do I read the qualifiers about their ideological biases.

Now if Ms. Rhode were to say something nice about Justice Alito – now that would be a story

By: SCOTUSblog

SCOTUSblog — Thu, 23 Feb 2006 18:27:50 +0000

Blog Round-Up – Thursday, February 23rd

Here is yet another post on Justice Alito’s clerk hires, this one on Concurring Opinions. PrawfsBlawg also has this follow-up discussing Justice Brennan’s decision to to withdraw his offer of a clerkship to Michael Tigar in 1966. Here Election Law…

By: John Steele

John Steele — Thu, 23 Feb 2006 00:02:34 +0000

Here’s the Federal Judicial Center’s pamphlet for law clerk ethics:

https://lawclerks.ao.uscourts.gov/ethics_for_lawclerks.pdf

By: Paul Horwitz

Paul Horwitz — Wed, 22 Feb 2006 18:29:36 +0000

Mike, I’ve been writing on this at Prawfsblawg; see the comments there too. You say that you know of no statutory restrictions on the ability of clerks to participate in a case based on prior experience. I think this sweeps a little too broadly, although, to wax Clintonian, it depends on what you mean by “statutory.” Federal law clerks are subject to the Code of Conduct for Judicial Employees, which does speak to conflicts of interest, which include personal as well as financial conflicts. I should think that even if we set aside the obvious cases in which the clerk has an ongoing financial interest — and which are subject, besides the Code, to the rigors of criminal law — there may still be cases in which involvement in past work rises to the level of presenting a personal conflict. Another statutory hurdle, although I do not know that it would be implicated here, is the federal statute governing revolving door government employees. Not to say I’m entirely unsympathetic to your argument; but there is more of a regulatory thicket involved than you may initially have suggested. Cheers, Paul