LAW 662 - Judicial Ethics Seminar

Course Type: Upper Writing Requirement
Credits: 2

Description: This seminar will meet for one two-hour session each week to discuss the role of the judge in a common law system judicial system, with particular emphasis on the ethical rules and disciplinary bodies and processes that provide constraints within which judges work on all kinds of different courts. Topics will include methods of selection; tenure and evaluation of performance; substantive standards and mechanisms for regulating judicial conduct both on and off the bench; and more generally the role that the judge is called upon to play in the broader legal system. We will also discuss the ways in which the expectations of the role, along with ethical rules, may be tailored to different specialized courts. Assigned readings will include sections of various codes of conduct, advisory opinions, disciplinary opinions, law review articles, newspaper articles, video clips, and Benjamin Cardozo’s The Nature of the Judicial Process. (All readings will be made freely available online.) Guest judges will join the discussion throughout the semester to add their perspectives from the bench. Grades will be based on students’ attendance, engaged participation in and preparedness for discussion, and draft and final versions of a substantive research paper on an approved topic relevant to the course materials.