A federal judge is speaking out after being named in an investigation revealing he and more than 100 other federal judges heard cases in which they held a financial interest.

Less than a year after assuming the chief judge role at the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Georgia, Timothy Batten Sr. is in the hot seat after financial disclosures collected by the Free Law Project, a nonprofit that provides free access to legal materials and research tools, identified him as having owned shares of JPMorgan Chase & Co. in 2010 and 2011.