USA Recycling, Inc. v. Baldwin Endico Realty Associates, Inc.

Order, Supreme Court, Bronx County (Howard H. Sherman, J.), entered on or about July 15, 2015, which, to the extent appealed from as limited by the briefs, granted defendant’s motion to disqualify plaintiff’s counsel and to vacate the parties’ stipulation of settlement, unanimously affirmed, without costs. Appeal from paper, same court and Justice, dated August 14, 2015, declining to sign an order to show cause, unanimously dismissed, without costs, as taken from a nonappealable paper.

Plaintiff’s counsel employed as a paralegal a non-admitted law school graduate who had previously worked for the executor of the estate of defendant’s former sole shareholder. These circumstances raise the question whether the paralegal possesses confidential information the disclosure of which could be detrimental to defendant (see Rules of Professional Conduct [22 NYCRR 1200.0] rule 1.6). Plaintiff argues that defendant failed to identify the confidential information that the paralegal obtained. However, the record demonstrates that, in his former position, the paralegal worked on matters directly related to this litigation, and gained considerable knowledge of defendant’s affairs (see Hernandez v Paoli, 255 AD2d 130 [1st Dept 1998]), and that plaintiff’s counsel did not properly “screen”

No appeal lies from a writing declining to sign an order to show cause (Kalyanaram v New York Inst. of Tech., 91 AD3d 532 [1st Dept 2012]).

We have considered plaintiff’s remaining contentions and find them unavailing.

Concur — Renwick, J.P., Mazzarelli, Moskowitz, Kapnick and Webber, JJ.