This sort of ignores the point - it all depends how you define conflict, which is where any meat of this sort of thing is. There is no real conflict here. At a

This sort of ignores the point - it all depends how you define conflict, which is where any meat of this sort of thing is. There is no real conflict here. At all. By any definition you will find of a conflict, or any advisory opinions, or any caselaw. That a family member once worked for a firm that, at some point in the past, may have represented a corporation that someone worked for (they aren't even sure), where the family member: 1. did not work on it 2. has no knowledge of it 3. wasn't even aware of this until informed. is simply not a conflict. Someone is always going to argue you should recuse. While recusal is super-rare, recusal motions are not. Someone will always try to paint a conflict about something! So your theory on reputation doesn't work in practice - you are going to get smeared either way. That's the fun of being a judge.