Before the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, a lender hired Adam Leitman Bailey, P.C. to commence an action in New York State Court to foreclose a mortgage the LLC borrower defaulted on in 2019. Through counsel, the borrower filed an Answer, and Adam Leitman Bailey, P.C. subsequently filed a Motion for Summary Judgment and Order of Reference.

When the borrower’s counsel requested an adjournment of the motion, as a common courtesy, Adam Leitman Bailey, P.C. agreed to adjourn the motion, executing a stipulation with a briefing schedule and a new motion submission date. On the new motion submission date, the motion was fully submitted without opposition.

In an attempt to un-submit the motion, the borrower’s incoming counsel (who had not formally appeared in the action) requested that the Court un-submit the motion to allow the borrower to submit opposition papers. In his written request to the Court, incoming counsel advised he was retained after the stipulation was filed. He also provided the Court with a borrower-executed consent to change attorney.

After thorough review of case documents, internal notes, and email correspondence, Adam Leitman Bailey, P.C. discovered incoming counsel had made conflicting representations to the Court and to Adam Leitman Bailey, P.C. about the executed consent to change attorney. Incoming counsel’s timeline, as he presented it to the Court, did not align with the documentary evidence at hand.

After identifying several of incoming counsel’s misrepresentations, Adam Leitman Bailey, P.C., in great detail and with supporting documentation, outlined these inaccuracies for the Court and, as a result, the Court denied incoming counsel’s request for an adjournment of the motion. Further, in an unexpected act that only reaffirmed Adam Leitman Bailey, P.C.’s unrelenting advocacy, the Court simultaneously granted Adam Leitman Bailey, P.C.’s Motion for Summary Judgment and Order of Reference.

Jackie Halpern Weinstein, Esq. and Marianne Sanchez, Esq. represented the Lender on behalf of Adam Leitman Bailey’s Foreclosure Litigation Group in this matter.