On October 3, 2025, Justice Weinmann of the Eighth Judicial District Commercial Division issued a decision in Hogan v. Van Buren, 2025 NY Slip Op. 25259, holding that a suspended attorney could not appear pro se or sue for unpaid fees.
First, the court held based on the language of the Fourth Department order suspending the plaintiff, he could not represent himself as a plaintiff, explaining:
In a case of first impression, it is now up to this Court to determine whether the Order of the Appellate Division prohibits Mr. Hogan from representing himself in order to sue his former clients.
In the first layer of analysis, this Court looks to the plain meaning of the language utilized by the Fourth Department. In its Order, the Court specifically utilizes broad language: “desist and refrain from the practice of law in any form either as principal . . . .” At bar, clearly Mr. Hogan is acting for himself —a principal party. He has filed papers and appears in court on his own behalf, thus violating the Court’s Order that he is forbidden to appear as an attorney before any court, judge, justice. There is no language permitting an exception of any kind —whether for pro se representation or otherwise.
The parties have submitted 2 cases, ostensibly involving the same suspended attorney acting pro se. The first case is at the trial level, and the second comes almost 4 years later from the Appellate Division, Second Department. In the first case, Spinnell v. Sassower (155 Misc 2d 147 [1992]), the suspended attorney was being sued by another attorney. The suspended attorney, Sassower, represented herself. The issues, primarily jurisdictional, were not directly on point, insofar as to whether the defendant could represent herself. However, Justice Michael D. Stallman of the Civil Court of the City of New York addressed the issue sua sponte in a footnote, noting:
While a suspended attorney may not represent another party during the period of her suspension, she may appear pro se in her individual capacity, and pro se as the president of the professional corporation
Thus a court of inferior jurisdiction would seem to permit the suspended attorney to appear and represent himself or herself. However, the Opinion is completely silent as to the exact, detailed and specific terms of the Order of Suspension —unlike at bar. At bar, it is clear that the Fourth Department specified: “refrain from the practice of law” . . . “and is hereby forbidden to appear as an attorney . . . before any court, judge, [and] justice.”
In the second case, Blaustein v. Sassower (232 AD2d 516 [ 2d Dept. 1996]), a different Court seemed to take a different tack. There, a client in a divorce matter sued his attorney, the same Sassower from the other case, for legal malpractice. There, the Appellate Division Second Department, did not preclude the suspended attorney from defending herself pro se in her individual capacity, but in contradistinction to the earlier case, the Court did hold that she could not represent her professional corporation in the litigation. But again, as with the first case, the Court did not address the exact, specific and particular terms of the Appellate Division’s Order of Suspension.
Applying both Sassower decisions to the facts at bar, it is evident that there is a significant factual distinguishing circumstance. At bar, the Fourth Department specifically and categorically issued an Order of the Court prohibiting Mr. Hogan from “the practice of law in any form either as principal or agent” (emphasis added). The first Sassower case, from a level below State Supreme Court and in another county of the state, did not reference the specifics, particularities, or actual terms in the Order of Suspension pertaining to Ms. Sassower. Likewise, the Second Department’s Opinion 4 years later also made no mention of the details, particularities, and terms of the Order of Suspension. But notably, the Court narrowed Sassower’s ability to self-represent. There the Court held she could self-represent as an individual, but not as president of her own P.C. (professional corporation). But again, there the facts are distinguishable from those at bar. There are no terms or particularities in the Order referenced. And again, the Second Department is a Court of different, concurrent jurisdiction to the Fourth Department, thus that decision is not controlling. And finally, there the suspended attorney was defending 2 lawsuits —not seeking to proactively file a lawsuit. In sum, the 2 cases cited, while arguably distinguishable, simply do not support any argument that Mr. Hogan may self-represent, in view of the Fourth Department’s extremely limiting and qualifying language in its Order of Suspension.
Finally, Mr. Hogan cited at oral argument the 6th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution for the proposition that courts may not prohibit even non-attorneys from self-representation. Further, he argued, that because he was suspended, and now acting as a non-attorney, he had the constitutional right to represent himself. However, even the U.S. Supreme Court has held that this constitutional right applies only in the realm of criminal law, where a defendant, made to respond to a criminal charge, has the right to self-representation. At bar Mr. Hogan seeks the opposite — not to defend, but to affirmatively file a lawsuit —and in a civil— not a criminal court. Thus even the U.S. Constitution and U.S. Supreme Court cannot help Mr. Hogan here.
In view of the aforementioned, this Court now holds that Corey J. Hogan, as an attorney suspended from the practice of law, may not represent himself in filing a lawsuit, whether against his former clients or otherwise.
(Internal quotations and citations omitted).
Second, the court held that the plaintiff was not, in any event, permitted to sue for his unpaid fees, explaining:
This case analysis does not end here, however, because the farmers have filed a motion for summary judgment alleging that regardless of any self-representation issue, Mr. Hogan is legally prohibited from suing the very party tied to the representation that was the rationale for his suspension.
. . .
At bar, the defendants allege there is no question of fact requiring a trial, and that the determination may be made as a strict application of law. Defendants cite chapter and verse of the Appellate Division, Fourth Department’s 7 page Opinion relying on a litany of behaviors committed by plaintiff that would make a card shark blush: providing business consulting under the guise of legal services; advancing personal funds to pay marketing costs and pay debts to vendors; taking security interests in the client’s property to secure and collateralize the client’s debts to plaintiff; filing a UCC statement listing the clients as debtors to the plaintiff; arranging 3 mortgages to the clients with plaintiff as mortgagee; and becoming a secured creditor and mortgagee to clients while legally representing them in refinancing transactions and defense of creditor claims. For all this, note the farmers, the appellate court found plaintiff in violation of the following Rules of Professional Conduct:
Rule 1.5 (b) — failing to appropriately communicate with a client;
Rule 1.7(a)(2) — representing a client where there is a significant risk that the lawyer’s professional judgment will be adversely affected by his or her personal interests;
Rule 1.8(a) — entering into a business transaction with a client;
Rule 8.4(h) – engaging in conduct that adversely reflects on his or her fitness as a lawyer;
22 NYCRR 1215.1 — failing to provide a letter of engagement explaining scope, fees, and services to be provided.In short, defendants have presented a smorgasbord of violations encompassing conflicts of interest; predatory behavior; exploitation; self-dealing; and abuse of trust. It is self-evident, they contend, that there is absolutely no issue of fact.
Plaintiff, on the other hand, contends that the entire scenario is rife with genuine issues of material fact. The farmers, plaintiff alleges, retained the benefits of extensive legal representation, including negotiating with creditors, assisting with refinancing efforts; and preserving the farming operation, yet they have failed to pay for those services. Plaintiff’s efforts were integral to the survival of the defendants’ business, contends plaintiff. The Court did [*6]not criticize the quality of the legal work provided, nor did they allege that Hogan’s services were incompetent, substandard, or ineffective. On the contrary, the defendants benefitted from Hogan’s work: they avoided foreclosure, maintained their farm, and created a pathway for financial stability. None of these assertions, however, raise even a hint of an issue of fact. They are partisan subjective opinions that may be subject to debate, but they certainly are not facts, let alone issues of fact. As United States Senator Daniel Patrick Moynhan once said, everyone is entitled to their own opinion, but no one is entitled to their own facts.
The bumper crop of cases, and thus the applicable case law, comes primarily from the Second Department, which apparently has its share of suspended attorneys. The leading case is Matter of the Estate of Harry Winston, et al. (214 AD2d 677 [2d Dept. 1995]), where the Court held in no uncertain terms: An attorney who engages in misconduct by violating the Disciplinary Rules is not entitled to legal fees for any services rendered. Citing Winston, supra, another Supreme Court held:
A disbarred attorney forfeits his entire fee if his misconduct relates to his representation in the matter for which the fees are sought. It is well settled that an attorney who engages in misconduct by violating the disciplinary rules is not entitled to legal fees for any services rendered.
Three other cases from the Second Department cite Winston, supra, and denied legal fees to attorneys who had engaged in misconduct and then sought to bill for the services which were the grounds for the misconduct.
In what appears to be a recurring pattern, the Second Department has developed a whole body of case law denying legal fees to suspended attorneys who wish to bill for the very deeds which led to their suspension or disbarment.
As a consequence, this Court holds that there are no issues of fact precluding a grant of Summary Judgment in favor of the farmers, and that the overwhelming body of accumulated case law prohibits Mr. Hogan as a suspended attorney from collecting fees, advances and disbursements from his former clients for the representation which was the very ground for his suspension from the practice of law.
Next, Courts have held that the doctrine of clean hands is a fundamental principle of equity as well as of public policy. The doctrine comes into play here because Corey Hogan alleges an equitable claim to be paid for services rendered. Where a litigant has himself been guilty of inequitable conduct with reference to the subject matter of the transaction in suit, a Court of equity will refuse him affirmative aid. Therefore, as a matter of law, held the Appellate Division, First Department, such plaintiffs should be denied relief and his complaint should be dismissed. As the Court of Appeals has held, no one shall be permitted to profit by his own fraud, or to take advantage of his own wrong, or to found any claim upon his own iniquity, or to acquire property by his own crime. These maxims are dictated by public policy, have their foundation in universal law administered in all civilized countries, and have nowhere been superseded by statutes.
Applying the doctrine of Unclean Hands and Levy, supra and McConnell supra, and Hytco, supra, plaintiff at bar shall not be permitted to profit by his own fraud, or to take advantage of his own wrong. Both equity and public policy, as described by the Appellate Division First and Third Departments and the Court of Appeals, therefore would prohibit Mr. Hogan from receiving compensation for his work for the farmers. Hogan’s representation clearly harmed the farmers to the tune of a more than $2 million debt, to say nothing of the ethical morass they could never have anticipated when they sought out assistance and counsel for their foundering farm.
(Internal quotations and citations omitted).