From The National Law Journal

Judicial ethics rules encourage judges to get out and mingle with the bar and the public. At the same time, those rules place restrictions on judges’ relationships off the bench to minimize conflicts of interest—real or perceived.

The National Law Journal’s federal courts reporter, Zoe Tillman, dug into federal circuit judges’ annual financial reports to explore who pays for judges’ expenses when they travel. In March, the NLJ obtained the 257 reports that federal appeals judges filed last year, which cover their financial activity in 2013.

All told, judges reported 802 expense reimbursements for transportation, lodging and meals. The reports, as well as interviews with judges, show that judges take different approaches to applying the ethics rules to their travel.

In addition to our feature about judicial travel, the NLJ highlighted a few numbers of interest from the financial reports—the law schools that paid the highest salaries, for instance, and what the reports tell us about judges’ hobbies.

The judges’ financial disclosures are publicly available from the federal judiciary only in paper form. In our report, we’ve posted all 257 documents. View and search the reports below. —Beth Frerking, Editor in Chief

IMAGE: Diego M. Radzinschi/NLJ.

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Related story:

Judges’ Trips Reflect Gray Area in Ethics Rules

Ethics guidelines place limits on judges’ financial ties to groups that litigate.

By Zoe Tillman, From The National Law Journal

November 9, 2015    | 0 Comments

IMAGE: WHO’S INVITED?: “The rules preclude one from, for example, going to a program that’s closed to the public,” Chief Judge Diane Wood of the Seventh Circuit said.

Roberto Westbrook

Federal appeals judges routinely travel across the country to speak and teach, and their hosts pay the cost. Rarely do judges visit legal advocacy groups that appear often in court, according to a National Law Journal review of judges’ annual financial reports.

Still, these trips — which involve relationships that judges are warned to handle with caution — reveal a gray area in judicial ethics rules about who judges can affiliate with off the bench, especially when money is involved.

The financial reports show limited interactions between judges and groups that have business, or even the mere likelihood of it, in their courts. Legal advocacy groups paid for only six of the 802 expense reimbursements reported in judges’ financial disclosures last year. In three instances, those groups appeared before the judge they hosted in a case decided within the next year and a half.

Judges are allowed to accept money for their travel expenses from groups that have an ideological position or a particular legal focus. However, judges’ ties to these organizations can trigger concerns about the “appearance of impropriety” — the public perception of bias, not an actual conflict of interest.

Statistics alone only tell a partial story. Along with a review of the 257 financial reports that federal appeals judges filed last year, the NLJ conducted phone and email interviews with 18 of them about how they apply the judicial ethics guidelines to their own trips.

There was no consensus. Some judges said they considered invitations on a case-by-case basis. Other judges drew a bright line, saying they would decline offers from groups known to participate in litigation in their courts.

“I will not accept any invitation from any entity that might have cases before the court, now or conceivably in the future,” Second Circuit Chief Judge Robert Katzmann said in an email.

Fourth Circuit Judge James Wynn Jr. said he employed a “smell test.” If he was invited to speak to a group “that sounds like they have an agenda, I typically am not going to be there,” he said.

In annual financial reports, federal judges disclose reimbursements for airfare, hotels, meals and other expenses worth at least $375, but not the exact value. The reports filed last year cover judges’ activity in 2013. Most reports filed this year were not yet available.

Events hosted by the conservative Christian legal advocacy group Alliance Defending Freedom highlight the varying practices among judges. Sixth Circuit Judge Alice Batchelder and Tenth Circuit Judge Bobby Baldock last year reported reimbursements for transportation, lodging and meals from the Arizona-based group — trips they’ve reported annually since 2007 and at least 2003, respectively. Batchelder also reported reimbursements for two trips in her disclosure this year.

Alliance Defending Freedom, which focuses on religious freedom issues, participates in federal court litigation, including in the Sixth and Tenth Circuits. It filed amicus briefs in cases argued in 2014 and decided earlier this year by appellate panels that included Batchelder, who directed questions to a judiciary representative. Both she and Baldock declined interview requests.

Eleventh Circuit Judge William Pryor Jr. said he used to speak at Alliance Defending Freedom programs — previously called Alliance Defense Fund — before he became a judge in 2005, but no longer does so because of the group’s activities in court.

“In the old days [Alliance Defending Freedom] didn’t litigate. They would just fund litigation by other groups,” Pryor said. “They changed that policy at some point, and, when they did, they started litigating in the Eleventh Circuit, and that made it pretty easy for me to decide early in my career as a judge that I wasn’t going to speak to that group anymore.”

For more on this story go to: http://www.nationallawjournal.com/id=1202741858999/Judges-Trips-Reflect-Gray-Area-in-Ethics-Rules#ixzz3r8ARSYyc