COMMITTEE ON CODES OF CONDUCT
ADVISORY OPINION NO. 3

Participation in a Seminar of General Character.

The Committee has advised that judges may properly accept a limited scholarship for partial reimbursement of travel and subsistence expenses incurred while attending and participating in the Appellate Judges Seminar conducted each summer under the auspices of the New York University Law School. At the seminar, federal and state judges in attendance addressed subjects relating to the operation and functioning of appellate courts. Participating judges were not compensated. The Committee found that there was no impropriety under any of the canons of judicial ethics or otherwise in the attendance by a federal judge at such a seminar, or the judge's acceptance of such a scholarship.

The Committee has also advised that it was permissible for a judge to participate as a faculty member in a two-week seminar on humanistic studies, for which no compensation was paid the judge, but the judge was reimbursed for the travel expenses of the judge and the judge's spouse and for their maintenance expenses during the period of the institute. We understood that the program was nonprofit in character but that nonfaculty who attended, primarily business and professional people, were charged tuition and maintenance expenses while in attendance, and that the content of the seminar was broadly based, philosophic in nature, and intended to promote discussion in depth among faculty and participants. The Committee agreed the judge could properly participate so long as the commitment did not interfere with official duties and gave no ground for any reasonable suspicion that the judge's office persuaded others to patronize or contribute to the seminar sponsor.

January 21, 1970
Revised July 10, 1998

Note:

1. See also Advisory Opinion No. 67.