Local Government Attorneys

Update: November 20, 2009 (see below)

The latest news from the federal trial of former New York state senate majority leader Joseph Bruno's is sadly not surprising. According to an Associated Press article yesterday, former senate legal counsel told Bruno to hand-deliver his financial disclosure forms so that there would not be any problems with federal...

One can learn a lot about local government (and judicial) ethics by listening to local officials talk about a conflict situation they're in. Here's one from Dallas County,  where the district attorney's wife is a political consultant for the campaigns of seven judges before whom the D.A.'s office practices.

An interesting disagreement has arisen over what is required for a contract with a council member to constitute a conflict of interest in California. According to an article in the Valley Chronicle, the city of Hemet and the League of California Cities disagree with a grand jury about whether a particular council member has a conflict. The council member is the executive director, and...

Update: November 11, 2009 (see below)

Is there any worse way to skirt government ethics rules and misuse public money and position than via a charitable organization? And yet it happens again and again. This time it happened in Baltimore, according to the results of an extensive investigation by the Baltimore Sun.

Can grades be evidence of a conflict of interest? This is what the Cook County prosecutor's office is effectively arguing, according to an article in the Chicago Tribune.

Northwestern University journalism students spent three years researching a criminal case, in which they believe that a man was wrongfully convicted. They presented a great deal of evidence to the prosecutor's...

One problem in government ethics is that when conflict situations are dealt with responsibly, there is rarely a record of them. They pass quietly, failing to end up in the newspaper, at an ethics commission, or in court. So generally we're stuck learning from the times when conflict situations are dealt with irresponsibly. One of these situations, in Wausau, Wisconsin, made it to court, and a decision this week by the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Wisconsin sets the facts out...