Ethics Committee Says Judges Can Ask Attorneys to Lobby

One more bit of history for the courts funding crisis: It’s helped prompt the first decision from a California ethics committee, which has decided judges can ask attorneys to lobby for more courts funding. That means asking them to write opinion pieces and lobby both the community and state lawmakers. The requests, however, can’t be “coercive,” and by that we guess they mean no more than is inherent when a judge asks something of folks appearing in their court.

The 12-member ethics committee is reportedly the idea of former Chief Justice Ronald M. George and was actually selected years ago by the California Supreme Court. It acts independently of all agencies and its advisory opinions are published at JudicialEthicsOpinions.ca.gov.

More on the “Committee on Judicial Ethics Opinions” can be found in a Maura Dolan story in The Los Angeles Times here.