AFAIK, he's not a former judge. He's a CURRENT judge.
There should be a rule that sitting judges cannot consult. If it's unethical for former workers to lobby their old employers, it's unethical for a judge to consult for a former successful plaintiff / defendant from their docket.
Agreed. To be paid as a consultant for a client you previously made a ruling in favour of, even if you had no prior agreement to be compensated for making said ruling, at least gives the impression that you COULD HAVE received compensation for your decision. Just imagine the outcry if Judge Lance Ito had been hired as a legal consultant by O.J. Simpson for the civil trial the latter faced after being acquitted in the criminal trial over which Ito presided. Especially if Ito remained a sitting judge while doing paid work for a former defendant from his docket.
Sitting judges are well compensated. To retain their image of impartiality, they should be banned from accepting consulting offers while they remain sitting, and they should furthermore be unable to accept future offers of compensation from any parties over whose trials they previously presided. If sitting judges are not well enough compensated to avoid seeking outside sources of income that have the potential to compromise their impartiality, then they should be better compensated.
To me, this is more about the integrity of the justice system, and its appearance of impartiality (which is almost as important as whether or not it actually is impartial), than it is about the ethics of this one judge, as we are in no position to make a judgment on the latter.
And for those conspiracy theorists who believe that this story is just posted as click bait and to try to smear the reputation of this judge, you do realize that the headline could have read, "Judge Ruling In Samsung's Favour Receives Thousands in Compensation From Samsung". Now, obviously, that would have been a misleading headline, while the actual MacRumors headline merely points out the interesting coincidence and unfortunate optics of the situation.
And in truth, it is not posters on this thread, but Sir Robin Jacob himself who sullied his own reputation by accepting compensation from a plaintiff in whose favour he ruled, less than a year after making that ruling. This is again not a comment on the ruling itself, but on Jacob's poor judgment in the matter of taking on a job as a consultant for Samsung after making the ruling. He's a smart man, and I'm sure he would have known that people would make the connection between his previous ruling and his subsequent involvement with Samsung.