Thread: Can a US Senator who is a lawyer continue to take civil cases while serving as Senator?

A man recently appointed to the US Senate until the next election is supposedly serving as my husband's divorce attorney. A politico friend says he actually can't do that, but could have one of his colleagues take over. Can he continue to act as my exes legal counsel or not?

As long as he still has his license to practice in that state, the courts really don't care whether he's a senator or not.

As far as the Senate's Ethics manual is concerned, as long as he doesn't use federal appropriations or official stationery, the Ethics committee doesn't care either.

The only real prohibition the ethics committee sets out on members in any way related to the courts are guidelines in intervening on a constituents behalf with various governmental agencies and particularly in lawsuits involving governmental agencies.

They do give general guidance that a senator should avoid situations which may present the appearance of a conflict of interest, but I hardly see where this would qualify. From what you describe, the man's agreed to carry out a divorce case he'd possibly taken on before his appointment.