Private Admonition of a County Court at Law Judge (11/18/04).
11/18/2004
The judge allowed an attorney who regularly practices in his court to office in his building and perform legal work for his company, conveying the impression that the attorney was in a special position to influence the judge. The judge's business relationship with the attorney also reflected adversely on the judge's impartiality and involved the judge in frequent transactions with a lawyer who regularly appeared in his court. Finally, the judge's failure to voluntarily recuse himself from a case involving the attorney or, in the alternative, to disclose the nature of his business relationship with the attorney to opposing counsel and the litigants, led to an appearance of impropriety of such nature and degree as to ultimately require that the judge be ordered removed from the case. [Violation of Canons 2B, 3B(1) and 4D(1) of the Texas Code of Judicial Conduct] Private Admonition of a County Court at Law Judge (11/18/04).
