re: Carroll's lawyer R Kaplan and the Manhattan Fedral Judge L Kaplan are related.

quote:

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The judge should have disclosed this personal and professional relationship

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I agree that disclosure is always better. Most of the NY ethics cases on prior firms deal with disqualification. For prior associates of a judge’s [prior] firm, there is generally a 2 year requirement of disqualification on the firm and firm’s former associates. Example 1 Exsmple 2. Nevertheless, if there was a mentor or mentee relationship, that seems to imply a greater professional connection. The judge may not get sanctioned, but that level of relationship would seem to be an item that would influence a council’s opinion on propriety.

Regardless, there isn’t a primary duty of counsel to initiate the question. Such duty would be tertiary, and comes into play when there may be a relationship the judge does not know Judicial Disclosure and the need for more guidance

As others have pointed out, this does illustrate a huge problem in the existing system. Home court bias is huge. First, you will get these type of situations, namelywhere there are all types of relationships outside the court, and regardless of what a judge may aver, does effect decision making. Second, in the rare event there are no such outside relationships, thete will be relationships develop because the same council tend to appear in front of the same judges. Thus, you almost always need representation by one of a small pools of lawyers in any court.