Teaching and Judicial Propriety
A judge may teach because legal education is a law-related activity consistent with the improvement of the legal system, but teaching is never equal in rank to adjudication. The permission to teach exists only so long as it remains compatible with the judge's constitutional and ethical duty to decide cases promptly, attend court regularly, supervise court personnel, and preserve public confidence in the judiciary.
Under the New Code of Judicial Conduct, propriety covers both actual conduct and the appearance of conduct. A judge must avoid not only impropriety but also situations that would make a reasonable observer suspect that judicial time, prestige, confidentiality, or impartiality is being used for a private teaching engagement. The older Code of Judicial Conduct expresses the same idea by requiring judges to regulate extrajudicial activities so that those activities do not cast doubt on impartiality, interfere with judicial duties, or detract from the dignity of judicial office.
Teaching is therefore a regulated privilege, not a private entitlement. A law school appointment, a professional invitation, or the judge's academic competence does not by itself authorize the judge to teach while holding judicial office. The controlling inquiry is whether the proposed teaching load can coexist with the exacting demands of the judge's docket and with the public image of a neutral, disciplined, and available court.
Prior Authority to Teach
Administrative Matter No. 13-05-05-SC and Office of the Court Administrator Circular No. 218-2019 treat teaching by judges as permissible only under conditions fixed by the Supreme Court and implemented through the Office of the Court Administrator. The judge must secure the required authority before assuming the teaching assignment, and the authority must correspond to the actual school, subject, schedule, semester or period, and place of teaching.
Prior authority is essential because the Court must be able to determine in advance whether the teaching engagement will impair court operations. A judge who begins teaching first and seeks approval later reverses the ethical order: the judge makes a private arrangement effective before the supervising authority has assessed its effect on public duties.
The request for permission should disclose the material facts of the proposed engagement, including the institution, subject, class hours, total teaching load, classroom location, period covered, and any change that may affect the original authority. If the class schedule, school assignment, or teaching load materially changes, the judge should seek appropriate clearance rather than rely on an old approval that no longer describes the actual activity.
Authority to teach is personal and conditional. It cannot be transferred to another court official, expanded by private agreement with the school, or treated as continuing authority for future semesters without compliance with the applicable circulars. It may be denied, limited, suspended, or withdrawn when the judge's docket, attendance, administrative record, or the needs of the service require full concentration on judicial work.
Basic Conditions
| Condition | Ethical Function | Operational Effect |
|---|---|---|
| Prior written authority | Subjects the extrajudicial activity to institutional control. | The judge may not teach merely on the strength of a school appointment or personal acceptance. |
| No interference with judicial duties | Keeps adjudication superior to private or academic commitments. | Hearings, trials, promulgations, orders, decisions, and administrative supervision cannot be postponed or neglected because of class. |
| Schedule outside official time | Prevents conversion of public office hours into compensated private work. | Class preparation, travel, attendance, consultation, and examinations must not consume time that should be spent on court work. |
| Manageable teaching load | Prevents overextension that may produce delay or inefficiency. | The load must be modest enough to leave the judge fully capable of meeting all reglementary and administrative deadlines. |
| Compatible location and logistics | Preserves the judge's availability to the court and litigants. | Travel to and from the school must not cause tardiness, absences, cancelled settings, or reduced supervision of the branch. |
| Continuing compliance | Treats permission as dependent on later performance, not only initial eligibility. | Subsequent docket congestion, delayed rulings, absences, or complaints may justify withdrawal of authority. |
Judicial Work Remains Primary
The most important condition is that teaching must not interfere with official duties. Judicial duty includes more than appearing in court during hearings. It includes studying records, resolving incidents, drafting decisions, reviewing orders prepared by staff, supervising court personnel, monitoring notices and returns, managing archives and exhibits, and ensuring that cases move within the periods fixed by law and rule.
A judge cannot justify delay by invoking class schedules, academic deadlines, faculty meetings, school activities, or examination work. A teaching assignment is voluntarily assumed and subordinate to judicial office. If the two conflict, the class must yield, not the court.
The condition against interference is breached when teaching causes or contributes to cancelled hearings, late court sessions, habitual undertime, inability to act on urgent matters, unreviewed draft orders, delayed decisions, or lax supervision of the branch. It is also breached when the judge's preparation for class displaces the intellectual labor required to resolve pending incidents and submitted cases.
Prompt disposition of cases is part of judicial integrity. Even if a judge is an excellent teacher, excellence in the classroom does not offset inefficiency on the bench. The ethical value of legal education cannot be used to excuse neglect of the public's immediate right to a functioning court.
Official Time, Court Resources, and Compensation
Teaching must be scheduled and performed outside official time. The prohibition covers not only the class hour itself but also related acts that consume court time, such as travel, preparation, checking papers, online consultations, grading, recording grades, and attending academic meetings. The judge must not use court hours as hidden academic work hours.
Court resources must not be used for the teaching engagement. Court personnel should not type handouts, encode grades, coordinate with students, arrange classroom materials, answer academic inquiries, or perform errands for the judge's school work. Court equipment, email systems, official stationery, office supplies, chambers, vehicles, and working hours exist for judicial service, not for a separate compensated activity.
Reasonable compensation for teaching is not inherently improper when the teaching is duly authorized and does not affect judicial duties. The impropriety arises when compensation appears to purchase access, influence, or favor; when it is disproportionate to the actual academic work; when it comes from a source with interests before the judge; or when the judge's public office becomes the reason for the financial benefit rather than the judge's academic service.
Because public office is a public trust, income and benefits from teaching remain subject to ordinary rules on public accountability, disclosure when required, taxation, and conflict avoidance. A judge should not accept honoraria, allowances, gifts, travel benefits, or special privileges connected with teaching if their character would reasonably create gratitude, dependence, or an appearance of influence.
Content and Classroom Conduct
Permitted teaching is ordinarily law-related and must be conducted in a manner consistent with the dignity of judicial office. A judge may explain statutes, rules, doctrines, court processes, professional responsibility, legal reasoning, and the administration of justice, but must avoid turning the classroom into a forum for partisan advocacy, personal attacks, or commentary that diminishes confidence in courts.
The judge must not discuss confidential court matters, draft decisions, internal deliberations, pending incidents, or information acquired by reason of office. Confidentiality survives the judge's movement from courtroom to classroom. The educational value of an example does not justify disclosure of matters that parties, witnesses, staff, or the judicial system are entitled to keep protected.
Comments on pending or impending cases are especially sensitive. A judge who teaches should use hypotheticals, settled doctrines, or public materials in a way that does not forecast rulings, signal predispositions, embarrass litigants, or give students and practitioners clues about matters still subject to judicial action. A judge's words carry institutional weight even in an academic setting.
The judge should also avoid giving legal advice to students, faculty, school officials, or visitors when the matter may come before any court or may require professional representation. Teaching explains law; it should not become private consultation, litigation planning, or informal opinion-writing for persons who may later appear in court.
Impartiality and Relationships Formed Through Teaching
Teaching naturally creates professional relationships with students, faculty members, deans, school administrators, and fellow professors. Those relationships are not automatically disqualifying, but they must be managed under the ordinary rule that a judge must act, and appear to act, impartially.
The mere fact that a lawyer appearing before the judge was once a student or colleague does not always require inhibition. Legal education is a small professional community, and automatic disqualification for every academic connection would be impractical. What matters is whether the relationship is close, recent, continuing, financially significant, personally hostile, or otherwise capable of raising a reasonable question about impartiality.
If a current student, faculty colleague, school official, or the law school itself appears before the judge, the judge should assess whether disclosure, inhibition, or other action is necessary. The judge must not give special scheduling, unusual courtesy, strategic information, or relaxed procedural treatment to persons connected with the teaching engagement.
The judge should be cautious about accepting teaching assignments from institutions, offices, or organizations that frequently litigate before the court or have a substantial institutional interest in cases likely to reach the judge. Even when no actual bias exists, repeated recusal or visible closeness to a recurring litigant can impair the appearance of independence.
Propriety Beyond the Classroom
The conditions for teaching also apply to activities closely connected with teaching. A judge should avoid promotional use of judicial office in school advertisements, recruitment materials, social media posts, endorsements, fund-raising campaigns, or institutional controversies. It is proper for a school to identify a judge's official position as part of truthful biographical information, but improper for that position to be used as a selling point suggesting influence or special access to the judiciary.
The judge should not solicit students, lawyers, litigants, or court personnel to enroll in a school, attend paid review programs, purchase materials, join school events, or support academic projects. Solicitation by a judge carries coercive potential because recipients may feel that refusal could affect how they are treated in court.
Online teaching and remote academic work are governed by the same ethical limits. A class held through videoconference is still teaching; recorded lectures, digital consultations, grading portals, learning management systems, and school messaging applications can still consume official time or create improper appearances. The medium does not reduce the duty to obtain authority and keep court work paramount.
Administrative Consequences
Unauthorized teaching may constitute misconduct, violation of circulars, neglect of duty, or conduct prejudicial to the service, depending on the circumstances. The gravity increases when the unauthorized teaching is accompanied by falsified attendance, inaccurate certificates of service, delayed decisions, cancelled hearings, misuse of court staff, or defiance of an order denying or limiting authority.
Failure to comply with the conditions may affect both the judge's permission to teach and the judge's administrative liability. A judge may be ordered to stop teaching, reduce the load, adjust the schedule, or explain docket delays. Administrative discipline may be imposed when the teaching engagement shows that the judge placed private academic commitments above the demands of judicial office.
The controlling ethical measure is not whether teaching is admirable in the abstract. The measure is whether, in the judge's actual circumstances, teaching remains subordinate to adjudication, free from conflict, transparent to the supervising authority, respectful of official time, and consistent with the public's expectation that a judge's first professional loyalty is to the court.