In 2012, four federal appeals judges enjoyed free legal services from law firms — including Judge Jay Bybee of the Ninth Circuit, for the sixth year in a row — and another 14 had financial agreements with firms they worked for before taking the bench.
These judges represented only a small subset, seven percent, of the 257 federal appeals judges whose mandatory annual financial disclosures were provided to The National Law Journal. The lingering financial ties that bind these judges to law firms aren’t prohibited — assuming judges recuse when the relationships create potential conflicts of interest. See chart, ” Judges’ Law Firm Ties, By the Numbers.”
