Rule 3.11 Financial, Business, or Remunerative Activities

Judges are allowed to have money invested and to manage their own investments, along with those of their family or household members. This means a judge can own stocks, manage a family investment account, or handle similar financial matters without breaking any rules.

However, judges cannot work as an officer, director, manager, partner, advisor, or employee for a business. There are two exceptions: a judge can help run a family-owned business, and a judge can manage a company that mainly exists to handle investments for the judge or the judge's family.

Even these allowed activities have limits. A judge cannot let personal investments or business dealings get in the way of doing the job properly. If managing these financial interests would force the judge to step aside from cases too often, that's a problem. The same goes for situations where the judge would end up doing repeated business with lawyers or other people who are likely to appear in that judge's courtroom. Any financial activity that breaks other rules in this code is also off limits.

The point of this rule is to keep judges from having money troubles or business ties that could affect their fairness on the bench. It keeps a judge's personal finances separate enough from their courtroom work so people can trust the judge is deciding cases based on the law, not personal financial interests.