Have you ever wanted to hire an attorney for a specific task in litigation and to do the rest of the case by yourself?
What about to oppose a motion? Or, to draft a complaint? Or, to respond to discovery? Or, to argue in court?
What about being frustrated when consulting with attorneys who will only take your case on an hourly basis because they will be stuck as your attorney until the end and have no idea how long the litigation will go; wouldn't it be better to only have to pay a flat fee for specific task?
The day of limited scope appearances in civil litigation has come in New York State.
Today, Governor Hochul signed A04938 into law and it's immediately effective. The bill enacts CPLR 321(d), which is titled "Limited Scope Appearance," and reads as follows:
1. An attorney may appear on behalf of a party in a civil action or proceeding for limited purposes. Whenever an attorney appears for limited purposes, a notice of limited scope appearance shall be filed in addition to any self-represented appearance that the party may have already filed with the court. The notice of limited scope appearance shall be signed by the attorney entering the limited scope appearance and shall define the purposes for which the attorney is appearing. Upon such filing, and unless otherwise directed by the court, the attorney shall be entitled to appear for the defined purposes.
2. Unless otherwise directed by the court upon a finding of extraordinary circumstances and for good cause shown, upon completion of the purposes for which the attorney has filed a limited scope appearance, the attorney shall file a notice of completion of limited scope appearance which shall constitute the attorney's withdrawal from the action or proceeding.
Now, CPLR 321(d) is not a license for a free-for-all. Instead, this new law is subject to the Rules of Professional Conduct, which requires your informed consent before a limited scope representation is established, by way of Rule 1.2, Comment 6A, which provides:
In obtaining consent from the client, the lawyer must adequately disclose the limitations on the scope of the engagement and the matters that will be excluded. In addition, the lawyer must disclose the reasonably foreseeable consequences of the limitation. In making such disclosure, the lawyer should explain that if the lawyer or the client determines during the representation that additional services outside the limited scope specified in the engagement are necessary or advisable to represent the client adequately, then the client may need to retain separate counsel, which could result in delay, additional expense, and complications.
Nonetheless, limited scope representation is expressly permissible under Rule 1.16(c)(11), which permits the termination of representation when it is allowable by "other law."
As a result, Lieb at Law welcomes you to the age of unbundled legal services in New York State litigation.
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