missing assignment report schoology

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How Do I Use Exceptions in My Gradebook?

You can add an exception to any Assignment, Discussion, Assessment, or Test/Quiz in your Schoology gradebook to denote that a student's submission is  Absent,   Collected ,  Exempt, Incomplete,  Missing  or  Late .

Adding Exceptions

To add an exception, point your mouse over the gradebook cell and click the flag that displays.

Select an exception from the menu to place the icon in the cell corresponding to a student's submission.

• To remove an exception from your gradebook, click the exception icon, and deselect your exception from the menu.
• Entering a score on a Collected item will automatically clear the flag. For all other exceptions, you must remove the flag before entering a score.
• Collected exception code can be requested to be enabled for customers if it is not available to their district by contacting Support. Collected exception codes pass the status of Submitted with a score of zero for the material for some SIS integrations.
• If an exception code is added after a score has been entered, the score will be cleared.

Absent, Exempt ,   Incomplete and  Late exceptions do not factor into the student's overall grade in Schoology. From a calculation perspective, marking a gradebook cell as  Absent,   Exempt,   Incomplete  or Late is the same as leaving it blank. Applying either does not penalize students or affect their overall grade.

The Exempt   and Incomplete icons simply serve as a reminder to the course admin that the student has either been excused or their submission is incomplete, to help avoid later confusion as to why that cell for that student is blank or unscored.

The Absent and Late exemptions also serve as a reminder that the student was either absent at the time of submission, or submitted the assignment late.

The Collected exception enables instructors to mark an item as Collected and enter a score at a later time since entering a score automatically clears the Collected flag.

The Collected icon serves as a reminder that the student has submitted an assignment but has yet to be graded.

In the screenshots above, the green circle with the white checkmark indicates that the student's assignment has been  Collected . The green icon indicates that the student is Exempt   from completing the assignment. The orange icon indicates the student made an Incomplete submission. The Excused and Incomplete cells contain null values, meaning that neither the possible points for this assignment nor the exception code are factored into the student's overall grade.

Marking a cell as Missing , however, does penalize the student's grade. Giving a student a Missing flag is the calculation equivalent to giving the student a zero. Selecting the Missing exception also adds a zero score in the cell:

This assignment has been marked Missing in the gradebook. This student has received a 0/100 on this assignment.

• Course Administrators can disable the scoring of missing assignments as zeros by changing the Disable automatic scoring of missing exceptions as 0  setting in Grade Setup. 
• If you change this setting after any grades are entered for a course, it will affect all graded assignments for that course that have been marked as Missing. 

Using Exceptions with Overdue Items

Marking an overdue item Absent,   Exempt , Late,   Missing or Collected removes the item from a student's Overdue notifications. Marking an overdue item Incomplete does not remove the item from a student's Overdue notifications.

The following scenarios explain how teachers can use exceptions to grade missing submissions and how it affects Overdue notifications:

• Teacher A is accepting late submissions but does not want the grade calculation to reflect the missing assignment, so they should use the Incomplete exception flag. This way the student will receive Overdue notifications and their grade is not impacted.
• Teacher B is not accepting late submissions and wants the grade calculation to reflect the missing assignment, so they should use the Missing exception flag. This way the student will see the impact of the missing assignment on their grade and they will not receive Overdue notifications.
• Teacher C is no longer accepting submissions for the assignment but does not want the grade calculation to reflect the missing assignment, so they should use the Exempt   exception flag. This way the student will not receive Overdue notifications and their grade is not impacted.

Locking Assignments

Students are still able to make submissions to the item even if you have entered an exception code into the gradebook. You receive the same new assignment notifications as you normally do. If you would like to prevent students from making further submissions to an assignment, you can lock it by clicking on the gear icon to the right of the item and selecting Edit. In the Advanced row, click the Lock icon to lock down the assignment and prevent future submissions.

Using Exceptions with Auto-graded Tests/Quizzes

If a student completes an auto-graded test or quiz after you have added an exception–for example, if you mark it Missing but enable a student to make it up later–you can accept the auto-generated grade and override the exception directly from the cell in the gradebook.

A test that has an override available displays with a black dot on the Test icon in the upper-right corner of the cell.

To clear the exception and accept the score of the test, click the test icon, and select Update Grade in the window that displays. Select Keep Override to clear the new grade and remove the black dot from the test.

Select View Submission to open a new browser tab and review the student's test.

Using the Exempt Exception with Student Completion (Enterprise Only)

You can use the Exempt   exception to bypass materials on which you have set up student completion requirements. For example, if a student is absent and makes up a required assignment with a different make-up project, or a student is new to class and doesn't need to start at the beginning of a folder with completion rules.

Will Exceptions sync over to my SIS Gradebook? (Enterprise Only)

Use the table below to see how exceptions are passed back to your SIS.

• Collected Only assignments will passback the Collected exception as long as it is consumed by other SIS integrations. Otherwise, it will passback an empty column with no grades. 
• If you are expecting your students' overall grades in Schoology to be calculated as similarly as possible to the calculation in your SIS gradebook, make sure you've configured your SIS gradebook to calculate blank cells as null values, rather than as zero.
• For organizations using SIS apps that leverage the IMS Global OneRoster standard for grade passback—each SIS interprets and handles the OneRoster statuses differently. Reach out to your SIS contact directly to confirm the expected behavior in your system.

Removing Exceptions from the Gradebook

In situations where an exception has been applied to a graded item and you would like to remove that exception, you can do so by following these steps:

• Enter the Gradebook.
• Locate the item that currently has an exception mark.

Click the exception mark, and deselect it to remove it from the gradebook cell.

If you enter a score for an item marked as Exempt , Incomplete ,  Collected, Absent,  or  Late , the flag will automatically be removed.

Please note, these errors can depend on your browser setup.

If this problem persists, please contact our support.

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In order to have Schoology calculate grades properly, all Gradebook items need to be Graded or marked as Excused, Missing, or Incomplete.

• Hover your mouse over a cell in the Gradebook where you need to mark a student’s grade as Excused, Missing, or Incomplete.
• Click on the Flag icon

Elements of the Assignment Dashboard

Paper Title: The title of the submitted paper.

Uploaded: The time and date that you submitted your paper.

Grade: Two gray dashes (--) indicate that your paper has not yet been graded or that your grade is not available as the assignment's feedback release date has not yet passed. Once your paper has been graded or the feedback date has passed, a numeric grade will replace the dashes. Click on your grade to open the document viewer, where you view your instructor's feedback.

% icon: Your similarity score can be found in this column. Click on the similarity score to open the document viewer, where you can view the Similarity Report. 

Upload icon: Resubmit your paper by clicking on this icon. This icon will be grayed out when:

• resubmissions are not enabled; and
• if the due date has passed and late submissions are not enabled.

Download icon: Download a PDF copy of your paper. This icon will be grayed out when a submission has not yet been made to the assignment.

Paper icon: Download a PDF copy of your digital receipt. This icon will be grayed out when a submission has not yet been made to the assignment.

Assignment Information

Click the information icon alongside your assignment's title to view your key assignment dates, maximum grade available and any instructions provided by your instructor.

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4 strategies to get those missing assignments turned in

Published: May 13, 2022

As we get closer and closer to the end of the school year, it happens as reliably as the changing of the seasons—students notice the late, missing, or forgotten assignments that might have a real impact on their grade.

Sound familiar?

Most teachers spend too much valuable time toward the end of the school year reminding students about their missing assignments. This process doesn’t have to be time-consuming or painful though.

Here are 3 simple and repeatable tips to help classroom teachers encourage students to—finally—submit those late, missing, or forgotten assignments.

1. Help students manage their own assignment completion

There’s no better way to promote accountability than to help students to keep track of and manage their own assignments list. LMS tools like Schoology or Google Classroom make the process easier than ever before.

With clear assignment instructions and due dates, every student can log into their LMS and see a clean list of which assignments have been turned in, and which are still outstanding—even if they miss a class!

2. Get parents, families, and caregivers on board to help keep students on track

One of the best ways to keep students from getting too far behind is to recruit the champions they have outside school. When parents and guardians are kept in the loop about the assignments that are upcoming—along with expectations and due dates—they can help students avoid missing assignments well before the due date.

Keeping parents and guardians aware when assignments become late or get entered as missing increases the likelihood that assignment will get completed too. The Parent/Guardian Portal in Schoolytics gives parents and guardians easy access to student assignments in each of their classes. There are even reminders you can automate when an assignment is late or counted missing.

3. Send automated reminders when assignments are past due

You know what they say about an ounce of prevention…

Setting up a Schoolytics account and syncing it with your Google Classroom ( remember: it’s free to sign up! ) lets teachers set up an automated report of late or missing assignments. You never have to click into each Classroom for assignment details!

You can even set up automatic reports for late or missing assignments—Friday late work roundup anyone? And now you can send a bulk reminder to every student with a link to their missing work.

4. Try a new communication method

Each generation of students is more online than the last, and Gen Z is spending most of its time on video-forward platforms like YouTube and TikTok. As teachers, we can either fight this reality or lean into it in our communication with students.

The good news is that the rise of online video has coincided with the advent of easy-to-use video creation tools, making it easier than ever to create engaging videos for free. Tools like Veed are great for trimming videos and testing your webcam to ensure you get the perfect take to keep students engaged and on top of their assignments.

In conclusion...

These interventions make it quick and simple to keep students on track for assignment completion. And they reduce the headache for teachers to have to manage chasing down late or missing assignments.

Have any other tips for helping keep late and missing assignments under control? Let us know on Twitter at @Schoolytics

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Investigations

When judges get free trips to luxury resorts, disclosure is spotty.

Tom Dreisbach

Carrie Johnson

Many federal judges receive free rooms and subsidized travel to luxury resorts for legal conferences. NPR found that dozens of judges did not fully disclose the perks they got. Chelsea Beck for NPR hide caption

Many federal judges receive free rooms and subsidized travel to luxury resorts for legal conferences. NPR found that dozens of judges did not fully disclose the perks they got.

Dozens of federal judges failed to fully disclose free luxury travel to judicial conferences around the world, as required by internal judiciary rules and federal ethics law , an NPR investigation has found. As a result, the public remained in the dark about potential conflicts of interest for some of the United States' top legal officials.

Federal judges — occasionally with family members or even their dog in tow — traveled to luxury resorts in locations as far-flung as London; Palm Beach, Fla.; Bar Harbor, Maine; and the outskirts of Yellowstone National Park for weeklong seminars. The judges received free rooms, free meals and free money toward travel expenses, together worth a few thousand dollars.

Victims of harassment by federal judges often find the judiciary is above the law

At one event, a far-right German politician with a history of racially inflammatory and anti-immigrant statements made a presentation to dozens of judges. At others, judges heard from an advocacy group that uses lawsuits in federal court to change environmental policy, as well as from corporate CEOs in the oil and pharmaceutical industries.

For almost two decades, the federal judiciary has recognized that the combination of apparent luxury and ideological content can present the appearance of undue influence on the courts. In response, the judiciary has required more transparency in the form of public disclosure.

An NPR investigation found that the disclosure systems often fail to give the public timely information about the outside benefits that judges receive and from whom.

As a result, judicial ethics experts say, people with cases before these judges lack important information about a judge's potential biases. That information, if received in time, could be used to request that a judge recuse from a particular case.

"It also matters to the public, even if someone never shows up in a courtroom, to believe in the integrity of our judiciary and to trust in the decisions that are issued by judges," said Renee Knake Jefferson, a professor at the University of Houston Law Center. "Having disclosures of judicial financial interests goes directly to the public having confidence in the outcomes of the decisions — that they are free of any bias or influence."

Many judges defend these events as helpful forums to discuss important issues, and they reject criticism that a stay at a fancy hotel could influence their decisions. Critics call them "junkets" and glorified vacations that reward ideological allies.

Both sides agree that disclosure is needed.

There are two primary ways the public can view information about judicial education events and see which judges attended: One disclosure is filed soon after the event, and the other is submitted much later.

First, within 30 days of an event, judges are required to file a form that details the host of the event and the entities that provided funding, as well as the speakers and topics of discussion. This form, called a " Privately Funded Seminar Disclosure Report ," is posted on every federal court's website.

Second, federal law requires that judges report the reimbursements they received for the events on an annual financial disclosure report. That report also includes information like alternate sources of income (such as a book deal or teaching job) and what stocks a judge might own. Those reports are eventually posted on a centralized online database maintained by the Administrative Office of the U.S. Courts.

By closely examining the portion of these events subject to public records laws, NPR identified problems with both systems.

In nearly 40 instances, judges attended events at luxury resorts but failed to properly file a report within 30 days. In fact, the forms were uploaded months or even years late and only after NPR began asking questions.

In 13 cases, NPR found that judges failed to declare the benefits they received on their annual financial disclosure forms.

NPR contacted all those judges for comment.

And in another dozen cases, judges' financial disclosures for 2021 or 2022 were simply unavailable to the public. By all accounts, judges are filing those annual disclosure reports on time. The Administrative Office of the U.S. Courts bears responsibility for posting those reports online and has acknowledged delays in getting the system up to date.

There is no indication that the judges intentionally withheld information in order to deceive the public. And the office that administers the annual financial disclosure website told NPR that it struggles to work through a backlog of reports, as well as requests for redactions to protect judges' safety, but is making progress.

Ethics experts said delays and omissions in these reports undermine the entire purpose of the transparency rules.

"That information loses most of its value if it's a year and a half later," said Kedric Payne, the senior director of ethics at the nonprofit watchdog Campaign Legal Center. "It's just too distant from the potential conflict of interest."

Regardless of intention, the result is that the public is kept in the dark. And NPR's findings likely represent an undercount of the larger problem.

Events with ideological presentations and a side of luxury

Nonprofits, legal organizations and private universities all host judicial education events around the world. But those groups are generally not subject to public records laws. As a result, their full attendee lists are shielded from public scrutiny.

When it comes to the hosts of these events, George Mason University in Fairfax, Va., is exceptional in two ways.

George Mason University's campus in Fairfax, Va., in 2018. Education Images/Universal Images Group via Getty Images hide caption

George Mason University's campus in Fairfax, Va., in 2018.

For one, GMU — particularly the university's conservative-leaning Law & Economics Center — has long stood out as one of the most prolific hosts of judicial education events. Collectively, hundreds of judges have attended the university's events at luxury resorts over the years. GMU is quick to point out that the events are paid for by private donors. The Law & Economics Center's website lists donors that include major corporations like Amazon, Pfizer, Google and Facebook, as well as the business lobby group the U.S. Chamber of Commerce. According to the New York Times , conservative activist Leonard Leo helped gather $30 million in donations to rename the law school after late Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia.

GMU is a public university in Virginia, which means it is subject to the state's Freedom of Information Act. NPR requested attendee lists for eight of its judicial education events from 2021 to 2023. By comparing attendee lists with the publicly available records, NPR was able to identify dozens of missing disclosures.

That missing information may be relevant to both the public at large and people with cases in front of these judges.

For example, dozens of judges took part in a 2022 event that featured a speaker from the far-right Alternative für Deutschland (Alternative for Germany) political party. Germany has been rocked by massive protests in recent months over revelations about AfD's ties to right-wing extremism. A regional AfD leader is facing charges in Germany for allegedly using Nazi slogans, which he denies.

Gunnar Beck, a member of the European Parliament and an AfD member, spoke to the group of American federal judges about "European Jurisprudence." Beck has a history of anti-immigrant and racially inflammatory statements.

In 2021 — the year before his presentation to the judges — Beck took multiple photos of Black families, including young children in strollers, and posted them on social media. In one of the posts, he used the photo to criticize what he called the Afrikanisierung (Africanization) of Germany. (This post was deleted after NPR contacted Beck.) In another, Beck wrote that due to immigration, "Germany has no future as an industrial and cultural nation, but it does have a future as a welfare office."

Beck told NPR in an email that "each country and its people have a right to control their border with a view to safeguarding their maintenance of their national culture and identity" and that "I do not think these views are either fascist or racist."

The GMU events have also featured presentations from a nonprofit that says it uses lawsuits to promote a pro-market, as opposed to pro-regulation, approach to environmental policy; the CEO of a U.K.-based pharmaceutical company ; and the CEO of an energy company that is currently suing the federal government over financial regulations.

One recent event included a reading assignment on the "worst decisions ever handed down by the Supreme Court" as defined by conservative and libertarian legal scholars. Roe v. Wade , which established a constitutional right to abortion, was No. 2. Landmark cases establishing rights to same-sex marriage and the use of birth control also appeared among the top 10 "worst" decisions.

Given the power of judges to affect Americans' lives on issues from guns to abortion, the environment and crime, transparency about these events is critical, said Gabe Roth of the nonprofit watchdog group Fix the Court.

"The public has a right to know whether or not its top legal officials have any potential conflicts going into hearing cases," said Roth. "Sometimes they're small bore, but a lot of the times they have major national impact."

The agendas for the GMU events showed that the event programming often ended around noon, followed by a five- or six-hour "study break." In some instances, the agendas leave days completely free.

It's unclear exactly how judges spent that time. But attendees had the opportunity to enjoy the Ritz-Carlton's clay tennis courts, the Alyeska Resort's Nordic Spa or the short walk to Buckingham Palace from the May Fair Hotel in London. The agenda for GMU's 2022 Bar Harbor Colloquium in Maine reserved 90 minutes for a wine tasting .

The Alyeska Resort in Girdwood, Alaska, in 2009. John Greim/LightRocket via Getty Images hide caption

The Alyeska Resort in Girdwood, Alaska, in 2009.

A spokesperson for GMU did not respond to NPR's specific questions for this story.

"Topics are selected based on foundational concepts in the economic analysis of law relevant to judges and other areas of interest to the judiciary," wrote Ken Turchi, associate dean of GMU's Antonin Scalia Law School, in an email. "Every judge who attends has the option to complete and submit a disclosure form detailing expenses incurred and reimbursed."

Which judges have disclosure problems?

Problems plagued the paperwork for judges appointed by presidents of both major parties going back decades, including Presidents Ronald Reagan, George H.W. Bush, Bill Clinton, George W. Bush, Barack Obama and Donald Trump.

And the judges who failed to fully comply with the disclosure requirements include some notable names.

In this screenshot, Aileen Cannon speaks during a Senate Judiciary Committee nomination hearing to be a U.S. district judge for the Southern District of Florida on July 29, 2020. She was appointed to the position later that year. U.S. Senate via AP hide caption

In this screenshot, Aileen Cannon speaks during a Senate Judiciary Committee nomination hearing to be a U.S. district judge for the Southern District of Florida on July 29, 2020. She was appointed to the position later that year.

Judge Aileen Cannon of the Southern District of Florida is presiding over former President Donald Trump's criminal trial for allegedly mishandling classified documents. Cannon, herself a Trump appointee, attended two seminars at a luxury resort in Montana, but the privately funded seminar disclosures for both events were not posted online until NPR began making inquiries. Clerk of court Angela Noble told NPR in an email that the absence of the disclosures was due to technical issues and that "Any omissions to the website are completely inadvertent."

Judge Robert Conrad is the director of the Administrative Office of the U.S. Courts. U.S. Courts hide caption

Judge Robert Conrad is the current director of the Administrative Office of the U.S. Courts, which implements the policies of the federal judiciary. Conrad, who was appointed by George W. Bush to the Western District of North Carolina, attended three privately funded seminars from 2021 to 2023. He later included the events on his annual financial disclosure but did not file a publicly available disclosure for any of those events within the required 30-day time limit. "He inadvertently did not make the additional disclosure in the separate system for private seminar attendance," said Peter Kaplan, a spokesperson for the Administrative Office. "Judge Conrad appreciates your bringing this oversight to his attention."

Judge Leslie Gardner of the Middle District of Georgia, who is the sister of prominent Georgia Democrat Stacey Abrams, also failed to file a privately funded seminar disclosure on time. Additionally, NPR found that Gardner omitted the reimbursements she received for lodging, meals and travel on her annual financial disclosure. In a phone call to NPR, clerk of court David Bunt said that Gardner, an Obama appointee, was updating her annual financial disclosure and privately funded seminar disclosure, which were incomplete due to an "oversight."

"I don't have really an excuse for it, and I'm going to correct it"

Judges contacted by NPR largely described the issues with their disclosures as the result of an "inadvertent oversight" or an "accident." In a handful of cases, court clerks blamed technical issues with the online system for uploading paperwork. One judge appeared to be unaware of the requirement to file a disclosure report within 30 days. Several judges thanked NPR for contacting them and prompting them to update their disclosure reports.

"It looks like we blew it," said Judge Philip Gutierrez of the Central District of California in a phone call to NPR. Gutierrez failed to file a disclosure within 30 days of attending a judicial seminar at The Breakers, a resort in Palm Beach, Fla., in 2021. "I apologize. It's important. I'm embarrassed."

Gutierrez immediately uploaded the missing disclosure.

Judge Gary Fenner of the Western District of Missouri attended the same GMU 2021 seminar in Palm Beach but failed to file a privately funded seminar disclosure and omitted the event from his annual financial disclosure that year.

"I am really surprised that I did not report that," said Fenner, an appointee of Bill Clinton, in a phone message to NPR. "I'm going to rectify it. I'm embarrassed about the fact that somehow that was overlooked by me. But I don't have really an excuse for it, and I'm going to correct it."

Judge Keith Starrett of the Southern District of Mississippi, a George W. Bush appointee, said he had thought he marked his attendance at GMU's seminar at the Park Hyatt Beaver Creek Resort and Spa in Colorado in 2021 on his annual financial disclosure. He acknowledged that it was missing from the forms due to an "oversight."

"I'm going to do whatever I need to do to get it right," he said by phone.

In the District Court for the Southern District of Texas, NPR found three judges — Jeffrey Brown, Andrew Edison and Charles Eskridge — who had not filed the required privately funded seminar disclosure forms. After NPR contacted the court, the judges uploaded the forms, and clerk of court Nathan Ochsner said in an email, "At the direction of Chief Judge Randy Crane, my office will routinely remind all [Southern District of Texas] judges of this reporting requirement."

Meanwhile, the delays in getting access to annual financial disclosure reports appear to be the result of the time limits built into the transparency laws, as well as a combination of long processing times for redactions requested by judges and, in some cases, security concerns.

The law requires that judges file their annual financial disclosure reports for the previous year on May 15. Many judges request and receive a 90-day extension, pushing that deadline to mid-August. Judges can then request that the judiciary redact "personal or sensitive information that could directly or indirectly endanger" the judge or the judge's family, but then a committee has to review the request.

"So if you're a judge that asked for a 90-day extension and then, on top of that, you're asking for redactions," said Roth, of Fix the Court, the public release of the annual disclosure is "already well into the following year."

Former federal Judge Jeremy Fogel, who is now the executive director of the Berkeley Judicial Institute, evaluated some of these redaction requests when he served on the judiciary's Committee on Financial Disclosure.

"I don't think that the problem you described is one where the judiciary doesn't want to share the information," said Fogel. "I think the problem is that they have not been able to put the resources in place to get the information online and available to the public in a timely manner."

The Thurgood Marshall Federal Judiciary Building in Washington, D.C., houses the Administrative Office of the U.S. Courts. Andrew Harnik/AP hide caption

The Thurgood Marshall Federal Judiciary Building in Washington, D.C., houses the Administrative Office of the U.S. Courts.

NPR sent a list of judges to the Administrative Office of the U.S. Courts and asked why their annual financial disclosures for 2021 or 2022 were still unavailable. Kaplan, the Administrative Office spokesperson, said he "could not comment on specific judges' filings." In general, Kaplan blamed missing disclosures on backlogs in the system and reviews of filings for possible security issues.

"Currently, nearly all filings from 2021 and more than 80% of the filings from 2022 are available on the database," said Kaplan. "We are continuing to cut into the backlog of reports."

An ongoing debate over judges and luxury trips

Even if judges universally filed their disclosure reports on time and if the federal judiciary sped up the release of information, it would likely not end the ongoing debate over judges getting thousands of dollars in free perks, especially at ideologically slanted conferences.

Fogel said that in his time as a judge, he tended to avoid events that might be perceived as ideological.

"I wouldn't go so far as to say that it's unethical," said Fogel. "But I think it's better — it's a best practice — for judges to avoid programs that have a particular philosophical or ideological viewpoint."

Judge Starrett, of the Southern District of Mississippi, has attended five GMU legal events in the last three years and even brought his German shepherd to one of them.

He rejected the idea that his views could be swayed by a certain speaker's agenda or free perks.

"I've been called a liberal judge. I've been called a conservative judge. I've been called a son of a bitch. That comes with the territory," said Starrett. "I pay close attention to speakers that are politically biased one way or another. I listen to them, and I challenge some of them. I ask pointed questions."

Judge Gutierrez, of the Central District of California, has attended three GMU events in the last three years.

"Certainly, I think people have a slant. But for the most part, I found them to be interesting and educational," he said. He added that a group of federal judges will always tend to ask tough questions and get into spirited debates — whether in court or in a legal seminar.

"We want our judges out in the world learning and teaching. And we want our judges to have friendships. We want our judges to be able to travel," said Jefferson, the legal ethics expert at the University of Houston Law Center. "It's the disclosure that matters."

Nick McMillan and Hilary Fung contributed reporting and visuals, with graphic editing by Alyson Hurt. This story was edited by Barrie Hardymon with research by Barbara Van Woerkom. Photo editing by Emily Bogle.

• financial disclosure
• federal judges
• George Mason University
• Federal Courts
• Aileen Cannon
• Leonard Leo