Jan. 28, 2026 – Judges face critical scrutiny to maintain their reputation for impartiality, a challenge so all-encompassing that a New York judge asked for an opinion if it was OK to participate in an online fantasy football league.

In New York Judicial Advisory Opinion 25-122, the New York Advisory Committee on Judicial Ethics considered fantasy football with lawyer friends acceptable as long as the lawyers playing in the league remain no more than acquaintances – and the judge stays impartial.

The committee “provides ethics advice to judges, justices and quasi-judicial officials of the [New York State] Unified Court System about their own conduct,” the committee’s website explains. “Our sole mission is to help judges comply with the Rules Governing Judicial Conduct.”

The New York committee serves the role comparable to Wisconsin’s Judicial Conduct Advisory Committee.

A fantasy football league, like fantasy sports in general, involves individuals building a virtual team of players based on professional sports players. The professionals’ real-world statistics throughout the season determine the success of a fantasy team.

Members in the judge’s fantasy football league communicate with each other only during the season’s draft period when they select pro players for their teams. Otherwise, they don’t meet.

The judge didn’t expect these lawyers, “former colleagues or acquaintances,” would ever appear in the judge’s court.

The league offered only low stakes – between $20 and $100 – and New York law clarified that fantasy sports aren’t illegal gambling.

Avoiding the Appearance of Impropriety

The requirements that a judge “always avoid even the appearance of impropriety … and must always promote public confidence in the judiciary’s integrity and impartiality” weigh heavily on even casual activities, the New York opinion demonstrates.

To maintain those fundamental principles, New York limits judicial conduct so that it doesn’t: “(1) cast reasonable doubt on the judge’s capacity to act impartially as a judge; (2) detract from the dignity of judicial office; or (3) interfere with the proper performance of judicial duties.”

Relationships must not influence judicial conduct or judgment. Any “proceeding in which the judge’s impartiality ‘might reasonably be questioned’” requires disqualification.

Although the New York opinion has no bearing on Wisconsin judges, they remain bound by a similar Code of Judicial Conduct in Wisconsin Supreme Court Rules (SCR) Chapter 60.

According to SCR 60.03, “[a] judge shall avoid impropriety and the appearance of impropriety in all of the judge’s activities.”

As a part of that rule, SCR 60.03(1), requires that [a] judge … shall act at all times in a manner that promotes public confidence in the integrity and impartiality of the judiciary.”

These duties extend beyond the robe. “The judicial duties of a judge take precedence over all the judge’s other activities,” SCR 60.04 specifies.

That includes “family, social, political or other relationships,” which may not interfere with the judge’s conduct and decisions, as described in SCR 60.03(2).

Similarly, “[a] judge shall so conduct the judge’s extra-judicial activities as to minimize the risk of conflict with judicial obligations,” such as to avoid “[c]ast[ing] reasonable doubt on the judge’s capacity to act impartially as a judge,” requires SCR 60.05(1)(a).

As in New York state, “a judge shall recuse himself or herself” when “[t]he judge has a personal bias or prejudice concerning a … party’s lawyer,” says SCR 60.04(4)(a).

Acquaintances

Fantasy sports “are skill-based games,” not gambling, making the activity legal, New York’s highest court decided.

When the committee released the opinion, “none of the members have appeared before the judge, and the judge considers the possibility remote.”

“On these facts,” the New York Advisory Committee on Judicial Ethics saw “no ethical impropriety for the judge to participate as a member of the fantasy football league.”

The next issue involves what the judge must do when one of those fantasy football members ends up representing a client in the judge’s court.

New York judicial opinions define “[a]n ‘acquaintance’ relationship.” The advisory committee used that definition to describe the judge’s duties going forward.

An acquaintance relationship develops outside of one’s duties in court, by chance or coincidence. Examples are “members of the same profession, religion, civic or professional organization.”

The mere fact an acquaintance appears in court, even regularly, does not in itself provide “a reasonable basis to question the judge’s impartiality.”

“For example,” the advisory committee said quoting an earlier opinion, “where an attorney who belongs to the same golf club as the judge is no more than an ‘acquaintance,’ we said that ‘neither disqualification nor disclosure is required … when the attorney/club member appears.”

Fellow members in the fantasy sports league are in the same category as those described in the earlier New York ethics opinions.

If anyone from the fantasy football league appeared before the judge, the judge does not need to disqualify or disclose the acquaintance relationship, the opinion explained – “provided the judge can be fair and impartial.”

“Rather, any decisions to disclose the nature of the relationship and any subsequent disqualification are left solely in the judge’s discretion.”