Shortly before Election Day 2018, I had a temporary injunction hearing where the judge made an interesting statement. After the close of evidence, the judge said he would take the injunction under advisement. Then he added that he had a campaign fundraiser that evening and did not want to see any of us there. Because “that just ain’t right,” he said.

I appreciated the judge doing this. I don’t think he was concerned that someone showing up at his fundraiser would sway him one way or the other, but he understood how it would look. I think he wanted to avoid even the appearance of impropriety.

The funny thing is, it would have been perfectly legal and ethical for us lawyers to show up and hand checks to the judge—at least under Texas rules and the cases applying them. Texas courts have repeatedly held that  a lawyer’s campaign contributions to a judge do not require recusal. They brush aside the obvious appearance of impropriety for pragmatic reasons: if campaign contributions were disqualifying, Texas judges would have to recuse themselves in half their cases.

The judge’s statement stayed on my mind after the election, when headlines focused on  the great State of Florida.

I love Florida for two reasons. First, Disney World. Second, the great headlines.

You know the kind of headlines I’m talking about:

Florida Man Breaks Into Jail to Hang Out With His Friends 

Florida Woman Calls 911 Three Times Over McDonald’s Chicken McNugget Shortage

Florida Clerk Smashes Jar of Ranch Dressing Onto Darth Vader Armed Robber 

Florida Strip Club Offers Free Flu Shots

Florida Supreme Court Rules That Facebook Friendship Does Not Disqualify Judge

Which of these do you think are real?

Ok, it’s a trick question. The answer is “all of the above.”

“Friends of an indeterminate nature”

The headline about a judge’s Facebook friendship is the most recent. Last week, the Florida Supreme Court held in a 4-3 decision that the mere fact that a judge is Facebook “friends” with a lawyer in a case before the court does not require disqualification of the judge.[1]

If that sounds familiar, maybe it’s because I wrote about the earlier Florida Court of Appeals decision in Social Media in Litigation Part 3: Why Can’t We Be Friends?

The underlying case was a civil suit by a law firm against a former client. After filing the lawsuit, the law firm hired a lawyer listed as a “friend” on the trial court judge’s personal Facebook page. It appears this was the only evidence regarding the relationship between the judge and the lawyer.

To disqualify a judge under Florida law, the movant must have a “well-grounded fear” that he will not receive a fair hearing. The question is whether the facts alleged “would place a reasonably prudent person in fear of not receiving a fair and impartial trial.”[2]

Note this has a subjective and an objective component. The subjective question is whether the movant fears the judge won’t be fair—not whether the judge will actually be unfair. The objective question is whether that fear is reasonable.

After laying out this standard, the Florida Supreme Court did what courts usually do when confronted with a new issue involving social media: analogize to pre-social media conduct. So the court started out by asking whether a “traditional” friendship between a lawyer and judge requires disqualification.

The mere existence of a friendship does not inherently reveal the degree or intensity of the friendship, the court said. “It follows that the mere existence of a friendship between a judge an attorney appearing before the judge, without more, does not reasonably convey to others the impression of an inherently close or intimate relationship.” Thus, “[n]o reasonably prudent person would fear that she could not receive a fair and impartial trial based solely on the fact that a judge and an attorney appearing before the judge are friends of an indeterminate nature.”[3]

That is why, under Florida law, “an allegation of mere friendship between a judge and a litigant or attorney appearing before the judge, standing alone, does not constitute a legally sufficient basis for disqualification.”[4]

The Florida Supreme Court then applied these principles to a Facebook friendship. You can already see where this is going. If a friendship IRL does not require disqualification, why should a Facebook friendship require it?

The court made the obvious observation that a Facebook “friendship” is not “as a categorical matter” the equivalent of a “traditional” friendship. That means a Facebook friendship “does not objectively signal the existence of the affection and esteem involved in a traditional ‘friendship.’”[5]

It’s common knowledge that Facebook friendship varies in degree from “greatest intimacy” to “virtual stranger” to “complete stranger,” the court said. “It is therefore undeniable that the mere existence of a Facebook ‘friendship,’ in and of itself, does not inherently reveal the degree or intensity of the relationship between the Facebook ‘friends.’”[6]

In short, “the mere fact that a Facebook ‘friendship’ exists provides no significant information about the nature of any relationship between the Facebook ‘friends.’”

The court concluded:

Therefore, the mere existence of a Facebook “friendship” between a judge and an attorney appearing before the judge, without more, does not reasonably convey to others the impression of an inherently close or intimate relationship. No reasonably prudent person would fear that she could not receive a fair and impartial trial based solely on the fact that a judge and an attorney appearing before the judge are Facebook “friends” with a relationship of an indeterminate nature.[7]

The court added that its holding was in line with the majority of state ethics committees that have considered whether a Facebook friendship between a judge and a lawyer creates an appearance of impropriety.

Of course, we must not read too much into this. The issue was narrow: whether a Facebook friendship standing alone was sufficient to warrant disqualification.

A relationship “fraught with risk”

Nevertheless, three dissenting justices in the Florida case would have required disqualification even on this narrow basis. Justice Pariente wrote in dissent that “a judge’s involvement with social media is fraught with risk that could undermine confidence in the judge’s ability to be a neutral arbiter.” He would adopt a strict rule requiring judges to recuse themselves whenever an attorney with whom they are Facebook “friends” appears before them.[8]

The dissent did not question the standard for disqualification cited by the majority, nor did it dispute the case law dealing with actual friendship. Rather, the dissent questioned the majority’s premise that Facebook friendship is analogous to traditional friendship. “[E]quating friendships in the real world with friendships in cyberspace is a false equivalency,” the dissent argued.[9]

Wasn’t that the majority’s point? A Facebook friendship is not the equivalent of a traditional friendship, the majority said, so if a traditional friendship doesn’t automatically require disqualification, a Facebook friendship shouldn’t either.

But the dissenting opinion touches on three things  that make a Facebook friendship potentially more problematic.

First, a Facebook friendship is public. Unlike a traditional friendship, which the parties may not even know about, a Facebook friendship is typically there for everyone to see. And it’s the appearance of impropriety—and the resulting loss of confidence in the integrity of the judicial system—that matters most.

Second, unlike some other social media platforms, Facebook allows the user to select and reject friends. “[T]he selection and rejection function is what causes the potential for the appearance of impropriety, after the judge has established the social networking profile that affords the judge the ability to accept or reject ‘friends.’”[10]

Third, the dissent seems worried that social media is just too risky for judges. “An individual judge’s social media, whether it is Facebook, LinkedIn, Instagram, or any other site, is fraught with concerns for the average litigant.”[11]

On this point at least one member of the majority agreed. Justice Labarga agreed with the majority that disqualification was not required but wrote a concurring opinion to “strongly urge” judges not to participate in Facebook. “[J]udges who elect to maintain Facebook ‘friendships’ with attorneys who have any potential to appear before them are, quite simply, inviting problems.” That means “the safest course of action is to not participate in Facebook at all.”[12]

That is obviously the “safest” thing for judges to do with social media. But is it the best thing? Could there be some benefits to judges engaging with lawyers and others on social media? Let me know what you think on my LinkedIn, Twitter, Instagram, YouTube, or Facebook.

Unless you’re a judge; that wouldn’t look right. Instead maybe I’ll see you at your next fundraiser.

___________________________________________________________________

Zach Wolfe (zwolfe@fleckman.com) is a Texas trial lawyer who handles non-compete and trade secret litigation at his firm Fleckman & McGlynn, PLLC.

These are his opinions, not the opinions of his firm or clients, so don’t cite part of this post against him in an actual case. Every case is different, so don’t rely on this post as legal advice for your case.

[1] Law Offices of Herssein and Herssein v. United Servs. Auto. Ass’n, No. SC17-1848, 2018 WL 5994243, at *7 (Fla. Nov. 15, 2018).

[2] Id. at *3 (citing some cases).

[3] Id. at *4.

[4] Id.

[5] Id. at *6.

[6] Id.

[7] Id. at *7.

[8] Id. at * 10 (Pariente, J., dissenting).

[9] Id.

[10] Id. at *11.

[11] Id. at *12.

[12] Id. at *9 (Labarga, J., dissenting).

When I sat at the counsel table in my first jury trial, there was no Facebook and no iPhone. Ricky Martin was rocketing up the charts with Livin’ La Vida Loca. We nervously awaited the arrival of Y2K, but at least we didn’t have to worry about someone on the jury live-tweeting updates about the trial.

My how times have changed.

Previously on Five Minute Law, we looked at the ethical issues that arise from using social media for opposition research (Part 1), advising clients on their social media use during litigation (Part 2), and interacting with judges on social media (Part 3). In this final Part 4 we look at using social media to research information on members of a jury panel, before and during the trial.

The bottom line: monitor, but don’t communicate, and promptly disclose to the judge and opposing counsel if you discover jurors behaving badly.

Hypothetical 1: Jury Research Before Trial

To illustrate, let’s get back to our favorite fictional non-compete lawsuit, Paula Payne Windows v. Dawn Davis. Paula Payne’s lead counsel, John Laurens, is worried. He’s concerned about jury bias for the “little guy” against the employer. When he gets a list of the jury panel the week before trial, he tells his team “find the ones who think the system is rigged!”

His local counsel, venerable trial lawyer Hank Livingston, drives by the homes of several on the list. Two catch his attention: Marc Horger, a welder who has a “Come and Take It” assault rifle sticker on his massive pickup truck, and Scott Silveri, a freelance journalist who has a “Feel the Bern” sticker on his Prius. “Johnny, you need to get rid of these guys,” he tells Laurens, “they don’t like authority.”

Laurens also finds out that Judge John Lansing has a new program to encourage giving younger lawyers more courtroom opportunities: extra time for jury selection if you let an associate handle it. Laurens summons young associate Phil Hamilton to his office. “Bill,” he says. “It’s Phil, sir.” “Whatever. Phil, you’re handling this voir dire; but first find out everything you can about this jury panel.”

Phil starts by Googling each juror. Then he checks any publicly available info on LinkedIn, Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter. He sees that juror Alex Hart looks good for employers, at least on paper: 45-year old CPA, married with three kids, employed by the same company for 15 years. But Hart once liked a LinkedIn article titled “How Non-Competes are Killing Free Enterprise in America.”

Meanwhile . . .

Maria Reynolds, the lawyer for defendant Dawn Davis, is also snooping. She’s not satisfied with the jury pool’s publicly available social media, so she asks her very attractive legal assistant to start friending male members of the jury pool on Facebook. The assistant gains access to several non-public Facebook profiles by sending vague friend requests.

One thing is clear: these lawyers are walking through an ethical minefield.

Ethics of Jury Research

So, which of these would be an ethical violation?

(A) Phil checking publicly available social media

(B) Hank driving by a juror’s house, if the juror sees him

(C) Phil viewing a juror’s LinkedIn profile, if LinkedIn notifies the juror he did so

(D) Maria’s assistant sending deceptive friend requests

(E) Not investigating the jury pool on social media at all

Let’s start with the most obvious. There is so much wrong with (D), having an assistant friend members of the jury panel. First, a lawyer can’t communicate with a potential juror, period.[1] Second, a lawyer can’t get around this rule by having an assistant or third party do the dirty work .[2] Third, even aside from the prohibition on communicating with a potential juror, a lawyer can’t use deception to gain access to a private social media account.[3]

Avoiding an outright lie does not necessarily solve the third problem. As the Philadelphia Bar Association reasoned, failing to disclose the reason for a friend request is an omission that renders the request deceptive.[4]

It should also be pretty obvious that (A), checking publicly available information on jurors, is generally ok. ABA Formal Opinion 466 (2014) states the consensus view: a lawyer may view a potential juror’s publicly available social media content, as long as the lawyer doesn’t communicate with the juror.

(B) is a little harder. Driving by a juror’s house is not communicating with a juror, but could it be considered “vexatious or harassing”?[5] Driving by one time is probably ok, even if the juror happens to notice the lawyer. Driving by three or four times? That might cross the line.

Answer (C), viewing LinkedIn if the juror becomes aware of it, is more difficult. In Part 1, I opined that this is ok as to witnesses. But contact with jurors is more sensitive, and there is a difference of opinion on whether a lawyer can view a juror’s public social media if the social media platform alerts the juror that the lawyer has done so.

Two New York opinions saw this as an ethical problem. “If a juror becomes aware of an attorney’s efforts to see the juror’s profiles on websites,” the New York County Lawyers’ Association said in its Formal Opinion 743, “the contact may well consist of an impermissible communication, as it might tend to influence the juror’s conduct with respect to the trial.”[6]

Same for the New York City Bar. In Formal Opinion 2012-2 they said it would be a prohibited communication if a lawyer views a juror’s social media knowing that the juror will receive a notification that the lawyer has done so.

But the ABA has a different view. It said in Formal Opinion 466, “[t]he fact that a juror or a potential juror may become aware that a lawyer is reviewing his Internet presence when a network setting notifies the juror of such does not constitute a communication from the lawyer . . .”

The ABA reasoned that the notification is a communication from the social media platform, not the lawyer:

This Committee concludes that a lawyer who uses a shared ESM platform to passively view juror ESM under these circumstances does not communicate with the juror.  The lawyer is not communicating with the juror; the ESM service is communicating with the juror based on a technical feature of the ESM. This is akin to a neighbor’s recognizing a lawyer’s car driving down the juror’s street and telling the juror that the lawyer had been seen driving down the street.

Pennsylvania Bar Formal Opinion 2014-300 agreed with the ABA’s position.

I think the ABA got it right on this one, except for using the acronym “ESM.” Why do ethics opinions always have to make up terms that people don’t actually use?

But if you want to take the cautious approach, make sure you only view juror social media if you know the social media platform won’t notify the juror.

Finally, answer (E), not investigating social media at all, is the least tested of these issues. Investigating the social media accounts of the jury panel may be an ethical minefield, but failing to do any investigation could violate a lawyer’s duty of competence. Some will even say that it’s malpractice if a lawyer doesn’t find out what is in the jury panel’s publicly available social media.

And competent representation may also include continuing to monitor jury use of social media after the jury is selected and the trial proceeds.

*UPDATE: The Social Media Subcommittee of the Texas Supreme Court Advisory Committee (affectionately known as SMSTSCAC) weighed in on December 1, 2017. The subcommittee sided with the ABA approach in this memo, recommending the following comment to Texas Disciplinary Rule of Professional Conduct 3.6: “A lawyer’s review of a venireman’s or juror’s website or electronic social media (ESM) that is available without making an access request, is not an improper ex parte communication.” The subcommittee also gave a charitable shout-out to Myspace in footnote 1.

Hypothetical 2: Jury Research During Trial

So let’s get back to our hypothetical non-compete case. Paula Payne’s lawyers strike Horger and Silveri, but Hart somehow manages to get on the jury. Phil Hamilton, the young associate, checks Hart’s Twitter feed after jury selection and sees that he tweeted: “Can’t believe I got picked for jury duty this week. Too much work to do!”

Reynolds, the lawyer for Dawn Davis, is also keeping tabs on social media. She tells her assistant to monitor the public posts of everyone who got on the jury. During the trial, they see a tweet from Hart: “The defense lawyer spent the last hour making the same point over and over. Someone shoot me now!”

Neither lawyer reports Hart to the judge. Phil doesn’t do anything differently, but Reynolds decides to tighten up her next cross exam to make it less repetitive.

So which of these things is an ethical violation?

(A) The lawyers monitoring a juror’s social media without permission from the judge

(B) Phil failing to report Hart’s “too much work to do” tweet

(C) Reynolds failing to report Hart’s “boredom” tweet

(D) Reynolds changing her trial strategy based on Hart’s “boredom” tweet

Answer (A) should not be a problem. Unless the judge has ordered otherwise, the lawyers don’t need to get permission to check what the jury may be saying on social media, and the duty of competent representation may even require that they do so.

(B) is borderline. Hart’s tweet lamenting his selection to the jury doesn’t really comment on the case itself. On the other hand, maybe it provides a clue about Hart’s state of mind and suggests an attitude about the lawsuit?

Failing to report an innocuous statement like this doesn’t strike me as an ethical violation, but the safer course would be to report it to the judge and opposing counsel. Plus, if the judge admonishes the juror for a harmless tweet at the start of the trial, it may prevent a more damaging tweet later.

(C) and (D) are likely to get Reynolds in hot water. If a lawyer finds that a juror has commented on something substantive about the case, the lawyer needs to promptly disclose that fact to the judge and opposing counsel.[7] And failing to disclose is even more dangerous if the lawyer uses the information to try to gain some advantage in the trial.[8]

Now that would be livin’ la vida loca.

*UPDATE: In its December 1, 2017 memo, the Social Media Subcommittee of the Texas Supreme Court Advisory Committee noted this issue: “Should counsel, in undertaking the permissible review of a venire member’s or juror’s ESM, discover improper conduct by that individual, what is the obligation to advise the court?” The subcommittee made no recommendation but did cite two disciplinary rules: 3.03(a)(2) (“A lawyer shall not knowingly fail to disclose a fact to a tribunal when disclosure is necessary to avoid assisting a criminal or fraudulent act”) and 3.06(f) (“A lawyer shall reveal promptly to the court improper conduct by a venireman or a juror . . . of which the lawyer has knowledge”).

___________________________________________________________________
Zach Wolfe (zwolfe@fleckman.com) is a Texas trial lawyer who handles non-compete and trade secret litigation at his firm Fleckman & McGlynn, PLLC. His invitation to join SMSTSCAC must have been lost in the mail.

These are his opinions, not the opinions of his firm or clients, so don’t cite part of this post against him in an actual case. Every case is different, so don’t rely on this post as legal advice for your case.

[1] Texas Disciplinary Rule of Professional Conduct 3.06(b) (“Prior to discharge of the jury from further consideration of a matter, a lawyer connected therewith shall not communicate with or cause another to communicate with anyone he knows to be a member of the venire from which the jury will be selected or any juror or alternate juror, except in the course of official proceedings”); see also ABA Model Rule of Professional Conduct 3.5 (lawyer shall not communicate ex parte with a juror or prospective juror unless authorized to do so by law or court order).

[2] New York City Bar Formal Opinion 2012-2 (“Third parties working for the benefit of or on behalf of an attorney must comport with these same restrictions”).

[3] Texas Disciplinary Rule 4.01(a) (lawyer shall not knowingly “make a false statement of material fact or law to a third person”); ABA Model Rule 4.1 (same); see also New York City Bar Formal Opinion 2012-2 (“the attorney must not use deception—such as pretending to be someone else—to gain access to information about a juror that would otherwise be unavailable”).

[4] See Philadelphia Bar Association, Opinion 2009-02 (having a third party send a friend request to a witness “omits a highly material fact, namely, that the third party who asks to be allowed access to the witness’s pages is doing so only because he or she is intent on obtaining information and sharing it with a lawyer for use in a lawsuit to impeach the testimony of the witness”).

[5] See Texas Disciplinary Rule 3.06(a) (lawyer shall not “conduct or cause another, by financial support or otherwise, to conduct a vexatious or harassing investigation of a venireman or juror”).

[6] New York County Bar, Formal Opinion 743 (2011).

[7] ABA Formal Opinion 466 (“if a lawyer discovers evidence of juror or potential juror misconduct that is criminal or fraudulent, the lawyer must take reasonable remedial measures including, if necessary, disclosure to the tribunal”); New York City Bar Formal Opinion 2012-2 (“if a lawyer learns of juror misconduct through a juror’s social media activities, the lawyer must promptly reveal the improper conduct to the court”).

[8] See New York County Bar Opinion 743 (if lawyer learns of jury misconduct on social media, he must not unilaterally act on such knowledge to benefit the client but must promptly bring the misconduct to the attention of the court “before engaging in further significant activity in the case”).

Judge’s Facebook friendship with lawyer does not necessarily require recusal

As a Florida court recently acknowledged, everybody knows that Facebook friends are not necessarily close personal friends. That got me thinking of the classic song Everybody Knows by Leonard Cohen. The first verse:

Everybody knows that the dice are loaded
Everybody rolls with their fingers crossed
Everybody knows the war is over
Everybody knows the good guys lost
Everybody knows the fight was fixed
The poor stay poor, the rich get rich
That’s how it goes
Everybody knows

After that sunny beginning, the rest of the song takes an unexpected dark turn.

Getting back to the Florida case, the court in Herssein & Herssein v. USAA said the mere fact that a judge is Facebook friends with a lawyer for a party does not require recusal. The court reasoned that being friends on social media is not necessarily being friends in the “traditional sense.” Thus, the Facebook friendship “does not provide a basis for a well-grounded fear that the judge cannot be impartial or that the judge is under the influence of the Facebook ‘friend.’”[1]

Texas courts and the American Bar Association had already figured this out a few years ago.[2]

The conclusion seems pretty obvious, especially when you consider that, before social media, the fact that the lawyer and judge were FITS (“friends in the traditional sense”) did not necessarily require recusing the judge.

There ought to be a law . . .

That leads us to Wolfe’s First Law of Social Media Ethics: If it’s unethical to do it in a traditional way, it’s unethical on social media too.

Recently, the Social Media Subcommittee of the Texas Supreme Court Advisory Committee issued this memo. The subcommittee recommended writing Wolfe’s First Law into the Texas Code of Judicial Conduct. They didn’t refer to my law by name or anything, but the resemblance is remarkable:

The subcommittee also proposed a detailed comment. The comment agrees with the recent Florida case that a lawyer’s “friend” status with a judge does not necessarily require recusal: “Simple designation as a social-media connection does not, in and of itself, indicate the degree or intensity of a judge’s relationship with a person and is not, in and of itself, determinative of whether a judge’s impartiality might reasonably be questioned.”

But the comment also gives judges several warnings about potential problems arising from use of social media, including: be mindful of privacy settings and public access, be mindful of the Code’s prohibitions when making public endorsements, and use extreme comment to avoid interactions that may be interpreted as ex parte communications concerning pending cases. In short, mindfulness and caution.

This proposed rule not be too controversial. The only criticism I might have is that this proposal, which merely states the obvious, may be unnecessary. Wolfe’s First Law is nothing if not intuitive.

Still, I’m not saying that applying this general principle to specific cases is easy. Courts, bar associations, and lawyers across the country have struggled with thorny questions that arise from judges using social media. And the  Let’s consider a hypothetical.

Previously on Five Minute Law . . .

Take our favorite fictional non-compete case, Paula Payne Windows v. Dawn Davis, where lawyer John Laurens filed suit to enforce a non-compete. After finding out the case was assigned to Judge John Lansing, Laurens hires local counsel, Hank Livingston, a venerable trial lawyer who “knows everybody.”

Oddly enough, Livingston and the judge happen to be FITS: Livingston was the best man at Judge Lansing’s wedding, and they go dove-hunting together near San Angelo every December. They’re also connected on LinkedIn, although Livingston doesn’t really know how to use it.

Meanwhile . . .

Laurens’ young associate, Phil Hamilton, is eager to impress his boss. Phil starts following Judge Lansing on Twitter and retweeting his tweets, which are mostly about barbeque and Texas A&M football. Phil also sends Judge Lansing a Facebook friend request, which the judge accepts without a second thought, adding Phil to the 3,000 friends he accumulated when he ran his last campaign. They like and comment on each other’s posts several times.

Laurens, on the other hand, still does things the old-fashioned way. He starts by filing a motion for a temporary injunction to prevent Dawn Davis from competing with Paula Payne Windows. After scheduling a hearing on his motion, Laurens shows up at Judge Lansing’s campaign fundraiser and hands him a check for $5,000. “Good luck with your campaign, judge, I know you’ll keep doing a great job.”

None of this goes unnoticed by Dawn Davis’s lawyer, Maria Reynolds. She gets aggressive and files a motion to recuse Judge Lansing based on his relationship with the lawyers representing Paula Payne.

Reynolds is careful not to impugn the judge’s integrity. Instead, she cites Texas Rule of Civil Procedure 18, which says a judge “shall recuse himself in any proceeding in which . . . his impartiality might reasonably be questioned.” It’s not a question of whether the judge will be impartial, she argues, but merely whether someone could reasonably question whether he can be impartial.

So what is the strongest ground for recusing Judge Lansing?

(A) The connection between the judge and local counsel on LinkedIn.

(B) The interactions between the associate and the judge on Facebook and Twitter.

(C) The fact that Paula Payne’s local counsel is the judge’s close personal friend and former campaign manager.

(D) The $5,000 campaign contribution Laurens handed the judge right before the temporary injunction hearing.

Unless you’re a member of Congress, I’m guessing the campaign contribution strikes you as the most egregious conduct here. And you would not be alone.

Texas case law on campaign contributions

The defense lawyers in a little case called Texaco v. Pennzoil also had an issue with campaign contributions. After that suit was filed, Pennzoil’s lead counsel, Joe Jamail, contributed $10,000 to the presiding judge’s campaign fund. Texaco moved to recuse the judge, arguing that the contribution, coupled with Jamail’s service on the judge’s “steering committee,” created an appearance of impropriety.

A simplistic person might think the timing and amount of the contribution would at least create a situation where the judge’s impartiality “might reasonably be questioned.”

But the Houston Court of Court of Appeals took a more sophisticated view. It held that recusal was not required.[3] The court cited Rocha v. Ahmad, where the San Antonio Court of Appeals ruled that two justices who received thousands of dollars in political contributions from one of the law firms did not have to be recused.[4]

Funny thing about Rocha: it did not deny the obvious. The court did not deny that campaign contributions can create an appearance of impropriety. Instead, the Rocha court reasoned that campaign contributions cannot be a basis for recusing Texas judges, because then the judges would have to recuse themselves all the time: “If a judge cannot sit on a case in which a contributing lawyer is involved as counsel, judges who have been elected would have to recuse themselves in perhaps a majority of the cases filed in their courts.”[5]

The Texas Code of Judicial Conduct also bows to this practical reality. Canon 4(D) generally requires a judge to refrain from financial dealings that reflect adversely on the judge’s impartiality. But there is an express exception for soliciting campaign contributions. So, generally a Texas judge does not violate any ethical rule by accepting political contributions from lawyers who practice in his court.

And Texas courts have continued to follow Rocha’s lead. Ten years later, the El Paso Court of Appeals held that recusal was not required where the campaign contribution was small, the judge had a policy of accepting only limited contributions, and the contributing lawyer was not lead counsel.[6]

The Corpus Christi Court of Appeals even went as far as holding that recusal was not required where the lawyer was the judge’s close personal friend, the judge’s personal attorney in another case, and the judge’s campaign manager in his last campaign.[7]

By 2014 the Dallas Court of Appeals could accurately state that “Texas courts have repeatedly rejected the argument that campaign contributions by attorneys is grounds for recusal.”[8]

The Texas case law leaves open the possibility that the timing and circumstances of a political contribution to a judge could be so egregious that recusal would be required. But the general rule in Texas is that courts will bend over backwards not to require recusal based on campaign contributions. I haven’t seen a single case where a Texas appellate court required recusal on this ground.

So what does this have to do with social media?

Texas law on contributions to judicial campaigns provides a helpful backdrop for questions about social media. If a lawyer can freely contribute to a judge’s campaign without fear of triggering recusal, it’s hard to see how any typical interaction between a lawyer and a judge on social media would create a sufficient appearance of impropriety.

No, when judges go wrong on social media, it usually involves something else: improperly commenting on a pending case before the judge. See John G. Browning and Justice Don Willett, Rules of Engagement, Texas Bar Journal (February 2016) (“judges shouldn’t discuss pending cases—period”). Generally, judges can freely interact with lawyers through social media, as long as they don’t use social media to do something they couldn’t do in a traditional way.

It’s Wolfe’s First Law of Social Media Ethics again.

And fortunately, there is a happy ending to the campaign contribution issue. The Texas legislature solved the problem in 1995 by passing the Judicial Campaign Fairness Act. Among other things, the Act provides that a judge may not accept a political contribution while physically present in a “courthouse,” which is defined to include a courthouse.[9]

That’s probably a good rule. There’s no appearance of impropriety when a lawyer hands the judge a check, as long as he does it at a fundraiser at Billy Bob’s BBQ and not at the courthouse.

Everybody knows.

___________________________________________________________________

Zach Wolfe (zwolfe@fleckman.com) is a Texas trial lawyer who handles non-compete and trade secret litigation at his firm Fleckman & McGlynn, PLLC.

These are his opinions, not the opinions of his firm or clients, so don’t cite part of this post against him in an actual case. Every case is different, so don’t rely on this post as legal advice for your case.

[1] Law Offices of Herssein & Herssein v. United Servs. Auto. Ass’n, No. 3D17-1421, 2017 WL 3611661, at *4 (Fla. App. Aug. 23, 2017).

[2] See Youkers v. State, 400 S.W.3d 200, 206 (Tex. App.—Dallas 2013, pet. denied) (fact that judge was Facebook friend of victim’s father did not necessarily require recusal in criminal case); ABA Formal Opinion 462 (2013) (“Simple designation as [a social media connection] does not, in and of itself, indicate the degree or intensity of a judge’s relationship with a person”).

[3] Texaco, Inc. v. Pennzoil Co., 729 S.W.2d 768, 842-43 (Tex. App.—Houston [1st Dist.] 1987, writ ref’d n.r.e.). The case had the largest damages verdict in Texas history but famously did not go up to the Texas Supreme Court.

[4] Rocha v. Ahmad, 662 S.W.2d 77, 78 (Tex. App.—San Antonio 1983, no writ).

[5] Id.

[6] Aguilar v. Anderson, 855 S.W.2d 799, 802 (Tex. App.—El Paso 1993, writ denied).

[7] Lueg v. Lueg, 976 S.W.2d 308, 310-11 (Tex. App.—Corpus Christi 1998, pet. denied).

[8] Holland v. Friedman & Feiger, No. 05-12-01714-CV, 2014 WL 6778394, at *10 n.8 (Tex. App.—Dallas Dec. 2, 2014, pet. denied).

[9] Tex. Elec. Code § 253.039.