Every courthouse hallway has its own atmosphere. People sit on benches waiting for decisions that may affect their children, property, liberty, safety, income, or reputation. Lawyers hurry between hearings. Witnesses wonder what they will be asked. Family members whisper. Judges move from one case to the next under pressure few outsiders understand.
Today, however, that hallway is just as likely to be virtual—a digital waiting room where a remote litigant sits in isolation, staring at a screen while waiting for a life-altering video hearing to begin. Reform advocates see, in real time, how much public trust depends on whether the system appears fair, not merely whether it claims to be fair.
Whether physical or digital, that entry point is the right place for a simple reform: outside every courtroom, post a conspicuous QR code, and within every virtual hearing room, embed a prominent hyperlink linking to the canons of judicial conduct and the rules of professional conduct for attorneys.
That is not an attack on judges. It is not an attack on lawyers. It is a statement of civic seriousness. If the courtroom—or the video stream—is where public power is exercised, the ethical rules governing that power should be visible there.
The rules already exist. Judges and commissioners are bound by judicial conduct rules. Lawyers are bound by professional conduct rules. These rules address impartiality, integrity, competence, diligence, candor, fairness, conflicts of interest, confidentiality, respect for the tribunal, and duties to clients and the legal system. They are not decorative. They are supposed to define the minimum ethical architecture of the justice system.
But for most people, they are functionally invisible.
The rules are “public” in a technical sense. They can be found online by one who knows what they are called, where to look, and why they matter. But a rule buried somewhere on a government website is public access in name only. A rule posted at the courtroom door, or pinned directly to a Webex waiting room splash screen, is public in practice.
This matters most for the general public. To many people, court feels like a closed guild with its own language, rituals, and unwritten rules—an isolating effect that is only amplified when proceedings are reduced to boxes on a monitor. Litigants often do not know what they are entitled to expect from a judge or commissioner. They do not know what their lawyers and the opposing parties’ lawyers can or cannot ethically do. They do not know the difference between misconduct and mere disappointment.
That ignorance cuts in both directions. Some people fail to recognize conduct that is genuinely improper. Others assume that every adverse ruling, every stern comment, every aggressive lawyer, or every painful outcome must be proof of corruption. Neither reaction is healthy. A visible ethics link would not turn laypeople into lawyers, but it would give them a starting point. It would say: there are standards, they are not secret, and here is where you can read them.
It also matters for civic reform advocates. Many justice-system reforms are complex, expensive, and slow. This one is not. Posting QR codes and integrating digital links would not require a constitutional amendment, a new agency, a new courthouse, or a decade of committee work. In many places, it could be implemented administratively with modest effort: a physical sign for the building, a standardized slide for virtual waiting rooms, pinned chat links for public YouTube streams, and automated hyperlinks in digital calendar invites.
That does not make it trivial. Some reforms matter because they change procedures. Others matter because they change what institutions are willing to show about themselves. A justice system that displays its ethical standards is making a claim: we are not afraid of the rules that bind us.
Legal professionals should support this too. For lawyers and bar associations, this is not merely a transparency measure. It is a professionalism measure. Clients sometimes believe a lawyer’s job is to do whatever will help them win: exaggerate, obstruct, intimidate, conceal, delay, or punish the other side. The rules of professional conduct say otherwise. Lawyers owe duties to clients, but they are not hired mercenaries. They are officers of a legal system that depends on candor, fairness, competence, and restraint.
Visible rules protect the public from unethical lawyers. But they also protect ethical lawyers from clients who demand misconduct as a litigation strategy. A lawyer can point to the physical placard or the pinned virtual link and say, “This is not optional. I am not allowed to do that”.
Judges should welcome the idea for the same reason. Judicial authority is not personal authority. It is public authority exercised under public standards. A judge faithful to the canons should not fear the public knowing what the canons say. To the contrary, the visibility of those standards strengthens legitimate authority. It reminds everyone that the robe—and the camera feed—represents service under rules, not power above them.
Objections only support the argument. The predictable objection is that posting the rules will open the floodgates to frivolous complaints. Some people may misuse the rules. Some already do. But ignorance is not a serious complaint-screening device. Education is better.
A well-designed QR and hyperlink landing page could explain, in plain English, what the rules do and do not cover. It could warn that an adverse ruling is not judicial misconduct by itself. A credibility determination is not misconduct merely because one party disagrees. Zealous advocacy is not unethical merely because it is unpleasant. Ethics complaints should not be used for retaliation, leverage, or venting. That kind of explanation would likely reduce confusion, not increase it.
Put the rules where the power is. Put them at the courtroom door, and put them at the top of the digital screen. Let litigants, lawyers, witnesses, jurors, journalists, students, reform advocates, and ordinary citizens see that the justice system does not ask for blind trust.
After all, rules are entirely meaningless if they are not known. When a justice system actively makes its governing standards easier to access, learn, and know, it earns a profound new level of public trust—proving it can be relied upon to apply the law correctly. True transparency creates an environment where power cannot be easily abused; a court that brings its own boundaries into the light is a court that is far easier to hold accountable, and far less likely to flout the very rules it is sworn to uphold.
Utah Family Law, LC | divorceutah.com | 801-466-9277