I had the privilege of serving on the Appellate Division, Second Department for 10 years, first as an associate justice for five years, then as presiding justice for the remaining five years. The experience of working with exceptional judicial colleagues and attorneys at the court have given me some insights which I hope will be useful to appellate practitioners and litigants.

Is an appeal useful and necessary? CPLR 5701(2) permits wide latitude in taking interlocutory appeals from unfavorable orders. Subsection (iv) requires that subject order “involve some part of the merits” while subsection (v) requires that the order “affects a substantial right.” It does not take extraordinary creativity for an attorney to find grounds to take an appeal when such an expansive statute is available.