Do Ethics Commissions Have Jurisdiction Over Officials' Practice of Law?
Lawyer-legislators are extremely creative people. The latest use of
their creativity is to argue that ethics boards cannot require
disclosure of a conflict of interest that arises from legal
representation because they have no jurisdiction over the practice of
law. Only the state Supreme Court has that jurisdiction.<br>
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The lawyer-legislator in this matter is state senator Rob Marionneaux
of Louisiana, a state whose ethics code applies to local governments.