ABSTRACT
For well over a century, much attention has been paid to the ethical conduct of lawyers, who must balance the duty to provide zealous representation of their clients with their sometimes conflicting responsibilities as officers of the Court. Considerably less attention—scholarly or otherwise—has been paid to judicial ethics. In court, judges may be held to even higher standards of integrity than those to which lawyers or other participants in the process normally are held. Outside of court, a judge may still be held to exceedingly high standards of honesty and propriety, as private actions may also reflect on the judge's capacity to perform judicial functions with impartiality. Although judges certainly can (and often do) maintain some personal opinions on broad legal issues, the premise that judges can nevertheless be open minded and impartial regarding the specific legal issues and parties that come before them remains a bedrock principle of our legal system.
