Responding to Judicial and Lawyer Misconduct: Analyzing a Survey of State Trial Court Judges

While reported cases or incidents may give us insight into the interpretation of Rule 2.15 of the Model Code of Judicial Conduct, they do not give us a sense of how often judges undertake the obligation to act under the rule. The Judicial Division of the American Bar Association developed a survey to explore the interpretation and the implementation of Rule 2.15 of the Model Code of Judicial Conduct, and to determine how and in what manner state trial court judges responded to ethical violations by lawyers and other judges. The survey looked back over a ten-year period and was sent to the members of the American Bar Association’s Judicial Division National Conference of State Trial Judges. This article discusses each paragraph of Rule 2.15, and analyzes the responses to the survey.