Abstract
When then-attorney, now-Federal District Judge Carl J. Barbier took his seat as President of the Louisiana Trial Lawyers Association (LTLA), he probably had no idea that his service for the LTLA would later cause him to suffer an embarrassing blow to his judicial integrity. Six months after he finished his yearlong term as president, the LTLA filed a motion seeking permission to file an amicus brief in support of the plaintiffs in a state tobacco case. Because of an unfortunate clerical error that wrongly listed him as the president of LTLA on that motion, Judge Barbier became the center of a heated debate about when it is appropriate to require a judge to recuse himself from hearing litigation related to issues about which he may have a personal opinion.