In Matter of Sage Realty Corp. v. Proskauer Rose Goetz & Mendelsohn (91 NY2d 30 [1997]) the Court of Appeals was asked to resolve a dispute between the former counsel for corporate clients and the clients' successor counsel about material in the clients' files that successor counsel requested and former counsel refused to deliver. Successor counsel asked former counsel "to turn over its files in their entirety on the financing and restructuring matters, and tendered a check for [former counsel's] bindery expenses for those transactions, that being the only remaining outstanding claim of [former counsel] for payment with respect to services and disbursements arising out of those matters." (See id. at 33.) The Court of Appeals adopted the majority view: "A majority of courts and State legal ethics advisory bodies considering a client's access to the attorney's file in a represented matter, upon termination of the attorney-client relationship, where no claim for unpaid legal fees is outstanding, presumptively accord the client full access to the entire attorney's file on a represented matter with narrow exceptions." (See id. at 34-37.) "Barring a substantial showing by [former counsel] of good cause to refuse client access, [former clients] should be entitled to inspect and copy work product materials, for the creation of which they paid during the course of the firm's representation." (Id. at 37 .) Former counsel, however, "should not be required to disclose documents which might violate a duty of nondisclosure owed to a third party, or otherwise imposed by law." (Id.) "Additionally, nonaccess would be permissible as to firm documents intended for internal law office review and use." (Id.) Former counsel could apply for "protective remedies in the event of oppression or harassment in connection with demands for file inspection, delivery of original documents or reproduction." (See id. at 38.) As to cost, "as a general proposition, unless a law firm has already been paid for assemblage and delivery of documents to the client, performing that function is properly chargeable to the client under customary fee schedules of the firm, or pursuant to the terms of any governing retainer agreement." (Id.) The court cautioned generally that its "holding in this matter is not to be construed as altering any existing standard of professional responsibility or generally accepted practice concerning a lawyer's duty to retain and safeguard all or portions of a client's file once a matter is concluded." (See id.)