Solow v. W.R. Grace & Company

In Solow v. W.R. Grace & Company, 83 NY2d 303, 632 N.E.2d 437, 610 N.Y.S.2d 128 [1994], the court declined to disqualify a 372-lawyer firm, representing the plaintiffs, but which had formerly represented the defendants in another litigation. The court held that, because the attorneys who actively participated in the previous action had left the firm long before the current litigation, the sworn affidavits by the remaining attorneys, corroborated by the firm's computerized billing records, established that their involvement in the prior litigation was at most limited, and the large, compartmentalized firm lacked the informality usually found in small firms, the disqualification was unwarranted.