90 N.J.L.J. 1
                                        January 5, 1967

OPINION 102
    
Municipal Charter Committee, Membership

    The governing body of a city has requested the mayor to appoint an advisory committee to make a charter revision study. The mayor has invited certain persons to serve on this committee including three former mayors, one of whom is an attorney. The committee will have no official status, will not have any specific statutory authority, and is not being created by ordinance. The question presented is whether service on the committee will involve a conflict of interest (see Canons of Professional Ethics, Canon 6) so as to debar the attorney from representing private litigants before the city's municipal court and municipal boards and agencies.
    The facts are very similar to those that were involved in this Committee's Opinion 28, 87 N.J.L.J. 106 (1964). There it was proposed that the mayor of a municipality appoint a committee of business and professional men "primarily for the purpose of attracting new small industries to the community." Saying that a lawyer was "especially equipped to serve on public bodies and to furnish to the public the benefit of his experience, skill and training," this Committee there held that there was no apparent conflict between the work of the proposed "unofficial advisory body" and the legal matters affecting the community. So here. Service of an attorney on the proposed advisory committee to make a charter revision study is in the public interest, does not entail a conflict of interest, and will not disqualify the attorney from representing private litigants before the city's municipal court
or its boards and agencies.