Informal Advisory Opinions
The Commission may issue advisory opinions related to ethics, conflicts of interest, financial disclosure, and any other topic over which it has jurisdiction. More information about the Commission’s advisory process can be found on the Advice homepage.
Informal Advisory Opinions are written to an individual person. These opinions are reviewed and voted on by the Commission at an open meeting. Informal Advisory Opinions contain the facts presented to the Commission, a discussion of the facts, and the application of the law providing an answer to the question which was asked.
All advisory opinions provide the individual, and any person similarly situated, with both criminal and civil immunity as described in Section 102.08(E) of the Revised Code and Ohio Administrative Code 102-3-01(C).
Search The Informal Advisory Opinion Archive
All of the Commission’s previously issued Informal Advisory Opinions are available here. In order to read these opinions, you will need a PDF viewer.
The archive is searchable by opinion number or keyword. For example, searching for family will return all Informal Advisory Opinions containing the word family.
Browse The Informal Advisory Opinion Archive
Informal Advisory Opinions are organized by year in the order in which they are written. The Informal Advisory Opinion number format is YEAR-INF (indicating that the opinion is Informal)-MONTH DAY (two digits each). For example:
- Informal Advisory Opinion No. 1988-INF-0225 is the only Informal Advisory Opinion that the Commission issued on February 25th, 1988.
- Informal Advisory Opinion No. 1988-INF-0407-2 is the second Informal Advisory Opinion that the Commission issued on April 7th, 1988.