The Advisory Committee on Judicial Ethics responds to written inquiries from New York state’s approximately 3,600 judges and justices, as well as hundreds of judicial hearing officers, support magistrates, court attorney-referees, and judicial candidates (both judges and non-judges seeking election to judicial office). The committee interprets the Rules Governing Judicial Conduct (22 NYCRR Part 100) and, to the extent applicable, the Code of Judicial Conduct. The committee consists of 27 current and retired judges, and is co-chaired by the Honorable Margaret Walsh, a justice of the supreme court, and the Honorable Lillian Wan, a court of claims judge and acting supreme court justice.
Digest: (1) A judge who previously served process for a supervisory assistant district attorney’s private law office is (a) permanently disqualified, without the possibility of remittal, from any case in which the judge served process and (b) disqualified, subject to remittal, from matters involving that law office for two years after the business and financial relationship between them completely ends. The judge may nonetheless preside in uncontested traffic cases where the defendant pleads guilty by mail.
