Category: NEWS

131 Federal Judges Broke the Law by Hearing Cases Where They Had a Financial Interest

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More than 130 federal judges broke the law and violated ethics by hearing cases involving companies they had a financial interest in over 11 years

More than 130 federal judges broke the law and violated ethics by hearing cases involving companies they had a financial interest in over 11 years An investigation found that more than 130 judges violated US law by overseeing cases involving companies in which they or their family held direct stock The report found that these judges have improperly failed to recuse themselves from 685 US court cases since 2010 The jurists were appointed by presidents whose terms have spanned seven decades, from Lyndon B. Johnson to Donald J. Trump Roughly two-thirds of the 131 jurists’ rulings ended up being in favor of their or their family’s financial interests Of the two-thirds of judges who disclosed stock holdings, about a fifth of them presided over at least one case that involved their stock, the report showed An investigation found that 131 federal judges violated US law by overseeing cases involving companies in which they or their family held direct stock, The Wall Street Journal reported. The judges failed to recuse themselves from 685 cases across the nation in which they held financial interest since 2010, the investigation revealed. What’s more, when the judges participated in these cases, roughly two-thirds of their rulings ended up being in favor of their or their family’s financial interests. While there are no laws that prohibit judges from owning stocks, the federal jurists’ code of conduct demands judges recuse themselves in the event that they hold any semblance of financial interest in a case – or, the ‘ownership of a legal or equitable interest, however small,’ as the set of regulations defines it. The cases in question were all held between the years 2010 and 2020 – and of the two-thirds of federal judges who disclosed… Read More

The Lawyer ‘s Duty of Loyalty: To the Client or to the Institution?

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THE LAWYER’S DUTY OF LOYALTY by Ramsey Clark I. My subject has within its range a major ethical problem of our society and of our profession. Law can be very important to life. It is essential, finally, to survival. I would like to think of it, for purposes of this conversation, as Hegel did in his work on the philosophy of right where he saw in the development of civilization an expansion of the consciousness of freedom, with the securing of rights under law as the actualization of freedom. Lawyers are involved in that process. All too often we think that law and legal justice can be something apart from life and social justice, that we can have one set of values and aspirations and attainments in one and something different in the other. But so profound an analyst and philosopher of our law and times as David Bazelon has wondered whether legal justice is possible without social justice. II. It is almost absurd to believe that humanity has a capacity to set aside its prejudices and other predilections in a courtroom. Culture is lord of everything, of mortals and immortals king, Pindar said. Law is caught up within the confines of that culture. It’s a slower part, but it is a part. Felix Cohen has said that most judges and lawyers, indeed most people, are as unaware of their culture patterns as they are of the* The talks collected here are adapted from the Baker and McKenzie Foundation Inaugural Lecture Series: Inquiry into Contemporary Problems of Legal Ethics, at Loyola University of Chicago School of Law, Spring 1984. ** Mr. Clark’s talk, which is presented here in a version edited with his permission by the Editors, was given March… Read More

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