To Have or Not to Have. Conflicts of Interest and Financial Planning for Judges

The canons of judicial ethics make clear that a judge should avoid putting himself in a position where he is likely to be faced with cases involving parties in which he is personally interested, and whenever such a case appears, he should decline to act.' This means, according to a formal opinion, that he should "not perform a judicial act, involving the exercise of judicial discretion, in a cause in which one of the parties is a corporation in which the judge is a stockholder."2 Although that prohibition against financial involvement in parties appearing before a judge is not new, the recent example of a Supreme Court Justice's resignation under fire for external involvements and a Supreme Court nominee's being rejected on financial conflict grounds3 has increased our sensitivity on that issue.4 That increased