In a New York civil case, you can change your attorney of record without going to court by filing a Consent to Change Attorney under CPLR 321(b)(1). The document has to be signed by the outgoing attorney and signed and acknowledged by the client, then filed with the court clerk. Once it is filed and the new attorney gives notice to every other attorney in the case, the change is effective.1New York State Senate. New York Civil Practice Law and Rules Law 321 – Attorneys
That is the whole mechanism. No motion, no hearing, no judge’s approval. The problems people run into are almost always about signatures, acknowledgment, filing steps, or notice, so it helps to walk through each piece before you print anything.
Who Has to Sign and What Acknowledgment Means
CPLR 321(b)(1) requires exactly two signatures for the consent to be valid: the retiring attorney signs, and the party signs with that signature acknowledged.1New York State Senate. New York Civil Practice Law and Rules Law 321 – Attorneys The statute does not require the incoming attorney to sign. The court’s standard document, Form 50, does include a signature line for incoming counsel, and most practitioners have the new attorney sign as a matter of practice.2New York State Unified Court System. Consent to Change Attorney Form 50 Stipulation Legally, though, what makes the document work is the outgoing attorney’s signature plus your acknowledged signature.
Acknowledgment is where filings get rejected. An acknowledgment in New York is a formal declaration before an authorized official that you are signing voluntarily and that you are the person named. A notary public is the most common option, but New York authorizes a broader list, including justices of the supreme court, judges or clerks of any court of record, and commissioners of deeds.3New York State Senate. New York Real Property Law 298 – Acknowledgments and Proofs Within the State Without the acknowledgment, the clerk will send the consent back as defective. Signing at the kitchen table is not enough.
What the Consent Document Has to Contain
Use Form 50 or a document that matches its content. The caption at the top must show the court, the county, the names of all parties, and the index number with the year.2New York State Unified Court System. Consent to Change Attorney Form 50 Stipulation Pull the index number from a recent filing rather than memory. If the number is off by a digit, the filing will not match the docket.
The form also asks for full contact information for both the outgoing and incoming attorneys: office address, telephone number, and printed name.2New York State Unified Court System. Consent to Change Attorney Form 50 Stipulation If you are moving to self-representation instead of bringing in new counsel, the same form has space for your own information in the incoming-attorney fields.
Filing the Consent and Serving the Other Side
In counties where electronic filing is mandatory, the consent goes through the New York State Courts Electronic Filing (NYSCEF) system. Parties in mandatory e-filing cases must file and serve documents through NYSCEF, with limited exceptions.4New York State Unified Court System. Frequently Asked Questions The outgoing attorney initiates the process on NYSCEF by e-filing the consent and then following the system’s procedure to remove their attorney representation from the case.5New York State Courts. Instructions for Removal of Attorney Representation
After the consent is filed, the new attorney has to serve a copy on every other attorney in the case. If a party is unrepresented, service goes directly to that party.1New York State Senate. New York Civil Practice Law and Rules Law 321 – Attorneys This is a statutory requirement, not a courtesy. Until opposing counsel has notice of the change, papers served on the old attorney can still count as valid service.
One thing the substitution does not do: it does not pause any deadlines. A discovery response due in ten days is still due in ten days. The incoming attorney inherits every obligation exactly where the outgoing attorney left off, so the file transfer between the two offices needs to happen quickly.
There is also a boundary worth flagging. CPLR 321(a) provides that once a party appears through an attorney, that party cannot act on their own behalf without the court’s permission.1New York State Senate. New York Civil Practice Law and Rules Law 321 – Attorneys A gap where no attorney is on file and you have not obtained court permission to proceed pro se can create real problems with service and deadlines. Line up the new attorney, or the pro se filing, before the old attorney disappears from the record.
When the Outgoing Attorney Won’t Sign
If the outgoing attorney refuses to sign the consent, CPLR 321(b)(1) is not available. You have to use CPLR 321(b)(2) instead, which requires a court order on motion, with notice to the client.1New York State Senate. New York Civil Practice Law and Rules Law 321 – Attorneys That means drafting motion papers, serving them, and often appearing before a judge.
Attorneys sometimes withhold a signature over unpaid fees, disagreements with the client about the direction of the case, or a belief that withdrawing at that moment would prejudice the client. Whatever the reason, if agreement is not possible, the motion is the only route. Courts have broad discretion on these motions and can impose conditions on the substitution. The closer the case is to trial, the harder the change becomes, because judges are reluctant to adjourn a trial so a party can bring in new counsel.
Files, Refunds, and Fee Disputes After the Switch
Under Rule 1.16(e) of the New York Rules of Professional Conduct, the departing attorney has to take reasonable steps to protect the client’s interests: give adequate notice, allow time to find new counsel, and deliver papers and property the client is entitled to. This holds even if the client fired the attorney or owes money for past work. New York recognizes a common-law retaining lien over the client’s file as security for unpaid fees, but the lien has limits, and courts will order file turnover when withholding it would prejudice the client’s active case.6New York State Unified Court System. New York Rules of Professional Conduct Rule 1.16
Any portion of a retainer that has not been earned must be refunded promptly. Holding onto unearned fees after the relationship ends is an ethical violation regardless of a separate billing dispute. The attorney’s remedy for unpaid bills is a lien or a separate action for fees, not self-help retention of client money.
For the fee itself, an outgoing attorney on an hourly retainer is entitled to the reasonable value of services already performed, called quantum meruit.7Justia. New York Other Courts Decisions – Section: Plaintiffs Cause of Action in Quantum Meruit On a contingency, the outgoing attorney may claim a proportional share of the eventual recovery based on the work done before the substitution.
Before any of this becomes litigation, New York has a dedicated arbitration program for attorney-client fee disputes under 22 NYCRR Part 137. A client can demand arbitration, and the attorney is required to participate; attorneys who refuse without good cause get referred to the grievance committee. The program covers disputes between $1,000 and $50,000, though the parties can consent to arbitrate outside that range, and it does not apply to criminal cases. Awards are binding unless either side requests a trial de novo within 30 days. If the attorney initiates by sending a Notice of Client’s Right to Arbitrate, the client has 30 days from receipt to elect arbitration. Miss that window, and the attorney can sue for fees in court instead.8New York State Unified Court System. Part 137 Fee Dispute Resolution Program
Using the Consent to Switch to Self-Representation
Not every change involves a new lawyer. CPLR 321(a) allows any individual party to prosecute or defend a civil action without an attorney, though corporations and voluntary associations must appear through counsel.1New York State Senate. New York Civil Practice Law and Rules Law 321 – Attorneys If you are an individual and you want to proceed pro se, you still use the same CPLR 321(b) mechanism to make the switch on the record. Either your attorney signs the consent and you list yourself in the incoming-attorney fields with your own address and phone number, or you move for a court order under 321(b)(2). You cannot simply have your attorney stop appearing.
Once the change is on the record, every deadline and obligation that applied to your attorney now falls on you. The court and opposing counsel need to know exactly where to send future filings, so the contact information on the consent has to be current and accurate.