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 in Albany County, and the Honorable Lillian Wan, an associate justice of the appellate division, second department.

Digest: (1) Where a judge regularly assigns a particular attorney as 18-B counsel or attorney for the child in a large number of cases, if the judge hires that attorney's life partner as the judge's personal secretary, the judge (a) must not approve the attorney's payment vouchers and (b) must not assign or appoint the attorney in future cases while the conflict persists. (2) If these limitations will significantly interfere with the judge's performance of judicial duties, the judge should not hire the secretary.