The Federal Judiciary and the ABA Model Code: The Parting of the Ways

Abstract

This article addresses the origin and development of the ABA Canons of Judicial Ethics, the subsequent reformulation of the Canons into the ABA Model Code of Judicial Conduct, and how the federal judiciary initially applied and adopted the ABA's efforts for most of the twentieth century. This article traces how, following the ABA's subsequent efforts to improve its Model Code and to remain consistent with the growth of congressional action on judicial ethics, the federal ethics rules and the ABA Model Code began to diverge in the 1990s. In light of recent developments prompting the ABA once again to reform its Model Code, and because significantly different pressures to reform are being placed on the federal judiciary from within and without, we predict that the federal judiciary's own rules of conduct and the ABA Model Code will continue to diverge.