New Jersey ethics complaint says Habba acknowledged conflict and neutral-role violations

New Jersey’s Office of Attorney Ethics filed a disciplinary complaint alleging that Alina Habba violated conflict-of-interest and third-party-neutral rules while helping settle a young golf-club employee’s sexual-harassment claims. The November 10 filing says Habba acknowledged in a June 2026 interview that her actions violated both rules. That is the regulator’s pleaded account, not a final finding, and Habba’s lawyer says no court or tribunal has found wrongdoing.

The complaint says Alice Bianco had retained an employment lawyer after alleging harassment by a manager at Trump National Golf Club Bedminster. It alleges that Habba, after being contacted by the Trump Organization’s chief compliance officer, advised Bianco to stop answering her lawyer. Bianco’s lawyer then ended the representation, and Habba helped obtain a $15,000 settlement. The regulator says Habba did not tell Bianco or the club that she represented neither party or explain the difference between a neutral and a lawyer representing a client. It also alleges that the agreement threatened substantial monetary penalties for confidentiality breaches, contrary to New Jersey’s statutory ban on enforcing nondisclosure provisions in discrimination, retaliation and harassment settlements; that allegation is part of the regulator’s account of the settlement, not a separately charged ethics count.

The alleged conflict rests on a documented financial relationship, not merely Habba’s later political role. The complaint says Habba had paid the club more than $80,000 in dues and fees by July or August 2021, when the settlement was being negotiated, and more than $156,000 from January 2020 through January 2025. It alleges that her communications created an implied attorney-client relationship with Bianco while her financial interest in the club gave her divided loyalties. The filing characterizes the settlement as favorable to the club and unfavorable to Bianco.

The same filing records limits that cut against a broader political theory. The ethics office says it lacks clear-and-convincing evidence that Habba acted under a secret agreement with Donald Trump or the Trump Organization. Its review of business and trust records found no payment from Trump or the Trump Organization before September 2, 2021, after the August settlement. Investigators also said they could not prove that an earlier statement attributing Habba’s involvement to Trump, or later disavowals of that statement, was intentionally false.

A second count alleges failures to maintain required law-firm financial records, including client ledgers, account journals and reconciliations. But the complaint says Habba later remediated the deficiencies except for account designations she could no longer change after leaving the firm. The regulator still charged a recordkeeping violation under RPC 1.15(d).

Habba’s lawyer, Kim Ringler, told New Jersey Monitor that the complaint concerns conduct from more than five years ago and that no wrongdoing has been found. A special ethics adjudicator can hold a hearing and issue findings and a recommended sanction; the Disciplinary Review Board reviews the record de novo. The board can issue an admonition without Supreme Court review, while reprimand-or-greater discipline is embodied in a Supreme Court order, and only the court can disbar.

The accountability finding is narrower and more consequential than a claim of secret political direction. The regulator alleges that Habba’s paid club membership created a conflict that compromised duties to a 21-year-old worker who had already retained counsel, and that she facilitated a settlement on terms favorable to the club and unfavorable to Bianco. At the same time, the office says it could not establish a secret agreement with Trump or the Trump Organization by clear and convincing evidence and did not charge that theory. The next test is whether Habba’s answer and any hearing record support the alleged acknowledgment, implied representation and divided loyalty.