When a layman attends a ball game and sees a manager rush an umpire to challenge an adverse call hoping to get it reversed, he thinks nothing of it. Litigators, however, see life through the narrow-minded prism of the law’s practices and protocols. The lawyer is reflexively — perhaps, subconsciously — offended that the manager is trying to ex parte the umpire into changing his decision, and notably without the opposing manager given the opportunity for input (or at least until the reversal is a done deal).
So much for baseball and the lawyer’s oddity. For the most part, the law, lawyers’ ethics and judges’ ethics simply do not allow for ex parte communications with a judge that are designed to influence her decision on a substantive issue. And if the unilateral communication with the judge was particularly significant to resolving an issue before the judge, it might be the “ball game” that requires appellate reversal.
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