The Commercial Division Advisory Council (the “Advisory Council”) has proposed three new amendments to the Commercial Division Rules: (1) a proposed amendment to Rule 1, which will allow counsel to participate in court conferences remotely, via Skype or other videoconferencing technology; (2) a proposed amendment to Rule 6, which will require proportionally spaced 12-point serif-type font in papers filed with the court; and (3) a proposed amendment to repeal Rule 23 (also known as, the “60-Day…

Summary judgment plays an important role in litigation.  So important, in fact, that many of our blog posts are devoted to the topic.  Last week, my colleague Matthew Donovan discussed the policy against allowing successive summary judgment motions.  A few weeks prior to that, in Summary Judgment 101, I discussed the basic, yet often forgotten requirement that a summary judgment motion be supported with “evidentiary proof in admissible form.”  This week, I will…

Most litigators are familiar with the requirement that a summary motion be supported with “evidentiary proof in admissible form” establishing the merits of a cause of action or defense.  Nevertheless, many practitioners make the common mistake of submitting evidence in support of a summary judgment motion that would not be admissible at trial, resulting in swift denial of the motion.  In fact, the Appellate Division, Second Department recently reversed a decision by the Nassau County…

Forum-selection clauses were once widely disfavored by many courts on the theory that such provisions operated to improperly divest the court of jurisdiction.  But now, it is well-recognized that parties to a contract may freely select a forum of their choosing to resolve a dispute arising from that contract.  In fact, forum-selection clauses are now prima facie valid unless the party seeking to avoid the enforcement of a forum-selection clause makes a “strong showing” that it…

For those civil practitioners who don’t regularly practice in the Commercial Division – beware.  The Unified Court System’s Advisory Committee on Civil Practice (the “Committee”) has proposed that nine (9) Commercial Division Rules be broadly adopted by other, non-commercial civil courts.  These nine rules all have one common goal: to promote efficiency in New York courts. Earlier this year, the Committee conducted a detailed evaluation of the Commercial Division Rules (22 NYCRR 202.70[g])…

Generally speaking, most people want to avoid becoming entangled in litigation.  But what happens when an action is pending and, although your client is not a party, his or her interests may be adversely affected?  Move to intervene. Intervention is a procedure whereby an outsider can become a party to a pending action on its own initiative.  Intervention is sometimes available as of right (see CPLR 1012), sometimes only in the court’s discretion (see…