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. 

We respond to your inquiry (20-120) about you and your first-degree relative both serving in the same town justice court simultaneously, as your child is considering running for a vacant seat on the court.

From an ethics perspective, the Rules Governing Judicial Conduct "do not prevent [a] judge's child from serving as … [a] judge of the same court on which the inquiring parent judge also serves" (Opinion 91-101).