Generally speaking, Conflicts of Interest can pertain to a company, judge or jury or even a lawyer. In this blog though, we will be talking about attorneys and Conflicts of Interest, what they are, why they aren’t very beneficial to the other parties and why it’s essentially against a moral code to take on a client when there is a conflict of interest. When it comes to conflict of interest cases, they tend to be ultra-specific and yet oftentimes they are difficult to identify or don’t raise a lot of red flags like some other issues in the legal system. One of the biggest reasons why people in the law profession – even cops, are so easily swayed or have such an issue with conflicts of interest is because they are people in positions that are very powerful. It’s not an unusual situation to find a public official like a lawyer, officer or judge that gets themselves involved in something that could be thought of as being conflict of interest. This can be something really blatant or it could also be something very innocent such as stocks and bonds or getting involved with board memberships or creating friendships or relationships with former clients.
If you read the daily paper, you probably see some pretty funny jokes or comics being drawn up about judges, but judicial misconduct is nothing to laugh about – especially if it endangers someone else. Once in a blue moon you may find that a judge can be swayed one way or another and since this is crossing a line and essentially taking advantage of his or her powers, it warrants the need to be reprimanded. If you are in a situation like this, you might not be sure what to do and prior to 1980 there really was nothing you could do – this was the year that Congress created a Judicial Misconduct reporting procedure. In essence, anyone is allowed to file a report against a judge and report the behavior. However, you will still need evidence that the judge gas crossed the line. Below, we will be going over reasons why someone could or would want to report a judge, as well as where and how to make the report and a few more tidbits of information regarding Judicial Misconduct.
Judicial misconduct is probably something you’ve never heard of before; it might even be something you aren’t aware of because it’s never happened to you. Unfortunately, it does happen and it is a real thing. Over the years more and more people with authority have become, how shall we say, corrupt. It’s a sad thing if you think about it because these are people that citizens rely on to keep safe. It’s not a super common thing, but it does happen in real life. Essentially Judicial Misconduct is just a fancy term for a judge that has acted in a way that is either unethical. It can also pertain to a judge that abuses his or her power. There are quite a few examples of these things happening over the past few years, but this has also happened in the past as well, especially when the mob was really up and about. There are quite a few different ways a judge can commit Judicial Misconduct, which we will be going over below, as well as what is expected from a judge and where to report it at.