Clerk Stock Ownership, Recusal, etc. Forum

[Anonymous User]

Hey all,

I'm starting a clerkship next year and want to limit the cases I'll have to recuse from. The ethics advisory opinions state I'll have to recuse from all cases involving my former firm and my partner's current firm. They also discuss judge recusal where they (or someone in their household) own stock in a party (or parent or sub), but I can't find anything about CLERK stock ownership.

Does anyone have info/advice? I'm mostly interested in knowing:
-Can I own stocks? (Doubt it)
-Can I own non-equities like indexes and other non-stock financial products? (Unsure)
-Would it suffice to restrict my investment discretion and give my financial advisor full control for the year? Or put my current portfolio in some kind of a blind trust? (Probably not?)
-wtf do I do about my 401k, which holds mostly S&P or sector indexes? (No clue)

Thanks!!

[Anonymous User]

Pretty sure that even if any of the other stuff is a problem, something like a 401k (assuming it’s the standard thing where you pick an option from various indexes or mixes of investments based on risk etc) doesn’t count - you aren’t generally actually controlling which stocks you invest in.

[Anonymous User]

Hey all,

I'm starting a clerkship next year and want to limit the cases I'll have to recuse from. The ethics advisory opinions state I'll have to recuse from all cases involving my former firm and my partner's current firm. They also discuss judge recusal where they (or someone in their household) own stock in a party (or parent or sub), but I can't find anything about CLERK stock ownership.

Does anyone have info/advice? I'm mostly interested in knowing:
-Can I own stocks? (Doubt it)
-Can I own non-equities like indexes and other non-stock financial products? (Unsure)
-Would it suffice to restrict my investment discretion and give my financial advisor full control for the year? Or put my current portfolio in some kind of a blind trust? (Probably not?)
-wtf do I do about my 401k, which holds mostly S&P or sector indexes? (No clue)

Thanks!!

I sincerely doubt having a 401k or mutual funds is an issue (I did during my clerkships and I don't recall the issue ever arising). But if you're concerned, you could ask one of the current clerks to check on the policy for you. My judges were big on inter-clerk class camaraderie, so if I had gotten a request like that from an incoming clerk, I would have happily emailed HR to find out.

[Anonymous User]

Look at Code of Conduct for Judicial Employees Canon 3(F)(4).

[Anonymous User]

Hey all,

I'm starting a clerkship next year and want to limit the cases I'll have to recuse from. The ethics advisory opinions state I'll have to recuse from all cases involving my former firm and my partner's current firm. They also discuss judge recusal where they (or someone in their household) own stock in a party (or parent or sub), but I can't find anything about CLERK stock ownership.

Does anyone have info/advice? I'm mostly interested in knowing:
-Can I own stocks? (Doubt it)
-Can I own non-equities like indexes and other non-stock financial products? (Unsure)
-Would it suffice to restrict my investment discretion and give my financial advisor full control for the year? Or put my current portfolio in some kind of a blind trust? (Probably not?)
-wtf do I do about my 401k, which holds mostly S&P or sector indexes? (No clue)

Thanks!!

- Yes, you can own stocks generally. But you probably cannot work on a case involving a company whose stock you own.
- Indexes are fine. Other non-stock financial products like commodities or FX or crypto are also probably fine. But single-stock derivatives like options probably count as those stocks.
- No.
- Indexes are fine.