PHILADELPHIA INQUIRER EDITORIAL: The substantial referral fees law firms paid to the wife and top aide of a state Supreme Court justice seriously compromise the appearance of impartiality required of a judge. The justice, Seamus P. McCaffery, should have disclosed the payments when lawyers from the responsible firms were before him. And his wife, Lise Rapaport, should make a choice between public employment and private compensation.
Over the past decade, Rapaport, a lawyer who works full-time as an aide to the justice, has received 18 payments from law firms for referring cases, the Inquirer’s Craig R. McCoy reported last week. The amounts remain unknown except for one remarkable figure disclosed in court records: $821,000, Rapaport’s share of a medical-malpractice settlement last year…
The Pennsylvania Code of Judicial Conduct requires judges to perform their duties impartially and to recuse themselves when “their impartiality might reasonably be questioned.” Beyond standards for recusal, the American Bar Association’s model judicial code broadly recommends disclosing issues that may affect impartiality: “A judge should disclose on the record information that the judge believes the parties or their lawyers might reasonably consider relevant to a possible motion for disqualification, even if the judge believes there is no basis for disqualification.” Though the model code has included a disclosure provision for more than 40 years, the Pennsylvania code does not – a major weakness… (more)
