Chris Heagarty - There are judges at all levels who may face a...

There are judges at all levels who may face a situation where there is a potential conflict of interest, either a situation where an attorney presenting a case before them has given a large sum of money or where the judge, as a candidate, has made statements implying favor or bias for one side of a case over the other. Many judges will remove themselves from a case if a conflict is apparent, but there are no official standards. A conflict that one judge might step aside for, another judge might not see as a problem. Rather than a standard set of guidelines for everyone to use it really is, forgive the pun, a judgment call.