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.

This responds to your inquiry (20-115) asking about your ethical obligations when an attorney, whom your spouse and his/her sibling have retained to probate their parent's estate and to handle related matters, appears before you. Your spouse and second-degree relative are co-executors of the estate.

In general, the Committee has advised that a judge is disqualified, subject to remittal, when an attorney representing the judge's first or second-degree relative appears before him/her while the representation is ongoing. In these situations, the judge's ethical obligations are usually limited to the specific attorney who is or was personally involved, either directly or in a supervisory capacity, in representing the judge's relative.