CJE Opinion No. 95-3

Appointment to Sub-Committee of Trustees Overseeing Conflict of Interest Policy

July 13, 1995

CJE Opinion No. 95-3

You have asked the Committee’s advice about the propriety of your service on a sub-committee of a university’s board of trustees that would oversee the university’s conflict of interest policy for trustees, overseers, and officers. The university has adopted a detailed written policy statement prohibiting trustees and other officers from engaging in certain transactions and activities and requiring disclosure of others. Disclosures creating significant problems are to be reviewed by the subcommittee which decides whether to recommend that the full board or executive committee vote on the matter.

Canon 5(F) provides that a “judge should not practice law.” While one does not have to be a lawyer to administer a conflict of interest policy, in our view, judges who administer such policies for a university are interpreting rules so much like the legal rules that govern lawyers, judges, and government officials that their work constitutes the “practice of law” for purposes of Canon 5(F).