Staff 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.

Staff Advisory Opinions are written to an individual person. Staff Advisory Opinions are written by an advisory staff attorney and are not reviewed by the Commission in advance. Staff 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).

Staff Advisory Opinion Archive

Staff Advisory Opinions are public records. Staff Advisory Opinions are typically not available on the Commission’s Web site, except at the direction of the Commission. In order to read these opinions, you will need a PDF viewer.

Staff Advisory Opinions are organized by year in the order in which they are written. The Staff Advisory Opinion number format is YEAR-STAFF (indicating that the opinion is a Staff opinion)-MONTH DAY (two digits each). For example, Staff Advisory Opinion No. 2023-STAFF-1207 is the only Staff Advisory Opinion that the Commission issued on December 7th, 2023.

Opinion Number	Requester
1998-STAFF-0428	(Armstrong)
2023-STAFF-1207	(Ramsini)