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NJC Announces Essay Contest Winner
New York Judge Michael Devlin Chosen as Essay Winner
12/14/2006

Staff Reports

During The National Judicial College’s recent online Ethics and Bias for Administrative Law Judge course, the 17 participants competed in an essay contest. The essay topic was how codes of judicial conduct define the role of an administrative law judge. The pieces were required to be between 200 and 400 words. Judge Michael Delvin, a workers' compensation law judge from New York, was the author of the winning essay, entitled, “Codes of Judicial Conduct: A Path to Public Confidence.” Judge Devlin's full essay is below.

The contest prizes include a one-year membership in NAALJ, the publishing of the essay on the NAALJ website and the NJC's website, and an NJC leatherette portfolio. The essay contest is held each time the online course, Ethics and Bias for the Administrative Law Judge, is offered.

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Codes of Judicial Conduct: A Path to Public Confidence.

Ethical codes of conduct, such as the Model Code of Judicial Conduct for State Administrative Law Judges, place certain limitations on the professional and personal conduct of administrative adjudicators. Since the Courts have recognized that administrative adjudicators are assumed to be persons of conscience and intellectual discipline capable of judging controversies fairly, why must we be also be bound by an ethical code of conduct? The primary reason is that the imprimatur of the Courts does not necessarily translate into public confidence in the fairness of administrative adjudication.

The role of an administrative adjudicator is to provide fair and impartial hearings and thereby protect the Constitution’s guarantee of due process of law. As employees of Executive Branch agencies, administrative adjudicators must overcome the perception of the public that they may be biased in favor of their employing agency. To assuage this concern, agencies should educate the public that the pay and continued employment of their adjudicators is not dependent upon how they rule, and administrative adjudicators can educate the public at each hearing by performing the duties of their office impartially and diligently. Administrative adjudicators by their conduct at hearings can instill confidence in the parties that their case was resolved by a neutral arbiter. A formal code of conduct provides guidance to adjudicators to meet this challenge, rather than allowing individual adjudicators to resolve ethical dilemmas according to their conscience. Clear standards of conduct are essential to building and maintaining public confidence in the fairness of administrative adjudication.

While the conduct of the administrative adjudicator on the bench is vital to promoting the public’s confidence in our system of administrative adjudication, conduct off the bench also affects the public’s confidence in the integrity of the adjudicatory process. The manner in which administrative adjudicators conduct their private lives may negatively affect the public’s perception of their ability to be fair and impartial on the bench. Therefore, limits are placed on the conduct of their family, social, and political relationships.
The position of Administrative Law Judge or hearing officer is a public trust. What we as administrative adjudicators do matters; and the aspirational goals of the ethical codes are necessary and integral to ensuring that what we do is Justice. Therefore, constraints on the conduct of our public and private lives are necessary for maintaining and promoting public confidence in the fundamental fairness and integrity of the administrative adjudicatory process.

Footnotes:
i Published by the National Association of Administrative Law Judges.

ii Withrow v. Larkin, 421 U.S. 35 (1975).

iii Model Code of Judicial Conduct for State Administrative Law Judges, Canon 3.

iv See generally K. Lewis, Administrative Law Judges and the Code of Judicial Conduct: A Need for Regulated Ethics, 94 Dick. L. Rev. 929 (1990).

v Model Code of Judicial Conduct for State Administrative Law Judges, Canons 2, 5, and 7. vi Model Code of Judicial Conduct for State Administrative Law Judges, Preamble.

Judge Michael Devlin