Should Appellate Courts Have Non-Party Jurisdiction Over Lawyers Appeals from Non-Monetary Sanctions?
Over the past two decades, the circuit courts have confronted the jurisdictional question of when a non-party attorney who has been reprimanded by a judge may properly appeal from the reprimand. First this Article examines the constitutional and statutory bases for appellate jurisdiction over these reprimands. It then explains the approaches taken by the circuit courts, which have given three different answers to this question: The non-party attorney may properly appeal (1) only when monetary sanctions are imposed; (2) only when the reprimand is ‘explicit and formal’; or (3) when the reprimand is in the ‘nature of a sanction.’ After categorizing, explaining, and analyzing these different approaches, this article proposes a functionalist, factor-based, theoretical model that courts can use to determine whether appellate jurisdiction is proper when the non-party attorney appeals from a judicial reprimand.
