After years of bitter litigation, Cellino & Barnes may be on the cusp of making their breakup official.

Details of the firm split, however, haven't been worked out, and it's not clear when the litigation will end.

Ross Cellino said in an affidavit filed last week in Erie County Supreme Court that "Barnes now accepts the reality of this situation and … will consent to a dissolution of Cellino & Barnes P.C." The affidavit, filed Jan. 3, was among several papers filed in a new spat over access to Cellino & Barnes' computers.

"In light of respondent Barnes's capitulation, and ongoing negotiations between us regarding issues involved in the windup process, respondent Barnes and I are each making plans to be prepared in the very near future—i.e. within the next 30 days—to open our own separate law firms," Cellino added.

In an email to the New York Law Journal, Barnes' attorney confirmed that his client will start a new firm in New York and merge it with The Barnes Firm, his practice operating in California. Christopher Berloth, a lawyer at Duke, Holzman, Photiadis & Gresens who represents Barnes, said there was no timeline set for the dissolution of Cellino & Barnes, however.

Cellino and Barnes, whose smiling faces and easy-to-remember phone number grace billboards and bus shelters across New York state, have been litigating since 2017 about Cellino's desire to break up the firm. Cellino has said the two had major disagreements about firm strategy.

Despite the partner acrimony, the law firm has continued to litigate clients' cases and make lots of money for Cellino & Barnes. In 2017, Barnes' lawyers said the firm's owners were each on track to rake in nearly $1 million per month. And Cellino & Barnes continues to advertise heavily, spending $2.6 million on TV ads in the New York City market over the first nine months of 2019, according to media data and consulting company Kantar. That's up from $1.6 million in the same period of 2018.

As of last August, when an appellate court allowed the case to move forward, Barnes was still opposed to breaking up the firm, his lawyer, Berloth, told the Buffalo News at the time.

Earlier this month, Barnes accused Cellino of allowing an information technology professional, David Blaszak, to "hack" into Cellino & Barnes' computer systems and copy confidential case information.

Cellino revealed in a response that he was on the cusp of setting up his own firm, Cellino Law LLP, and said Blaszak was liaising with technology vendors, copying email inboxes of a few consenting attorneys and taking other steps that Barnes had previously indicated he had "no problem" with. He added that The Barnes Firm, the California law firm set up by Barnes, had its own IT professional doing similar work, and Blaszak "simply evens the playing field."

In an interview, Terrence Connors, an attorney for Cellino who runs his own firm, said the details of the split were still being ironed out. While Cellino told a vendor in a publicly filed email that "it would be fair to say that 50% of the attorneys will be Steve and the other 50% will be with me," Connors declined to comment on that split. 

"Ross is excited about the next chapter of his professional career and looks forward to starting his own firm after the dissolution is final," Connors said.

Berloth said in an email that "Mr. Barnes firmly believes that he will retain a significant majority of attorneys."

It wasn't immediately clear Thursday what would happen to Cellino & Barnes' assets, from its offices to its memorable jingle and its phone number, 800-888-8888. A trial was expected to begin Jan. 14, according to an October letter filed by John Schmidt, a partner at Phillips Lytle who was appointed to sort out disputes related to The Barnes Firm's split from Cellino & Barnes.

The dispute over access to Cellino & Barnes technology is just the latest exchange to make headlines. Details of their firm's success and claims by each partner that the other was wasting resources to his own benefit have circulated widely. The split has even been the subject of a comedy show.

Last summer, Barnes sued Cellino & Cellino, a law firm created by Ross Cellino's wife Anna Marie and their two daughters, accusing the firm of infringing on Cellino & Barnes trademarks and alleging Ross Cellino's support. That federal suit was dismissed after Cellino & Cellino changed its name to the Law Offices of Anna Marie Cellino, amid questions about Barnes' authority to sue on Cellino & Barnes' behalf.

Blaszak, the IT professional tied to Cellino, used an email address ending in @cellinolaw.com, according to a recent court exhibit. That website is used by the Law Offices of Anna Marie Cellino. Asked if other members of the Cellino family would join Ross Cellino's firm upon dissolution, Connors said no and that the Cellino firms would be separate. Ross Cellino's daughter Jeanna Cellino, of the Law Offices of Anna Marie Cellino, said she had "no knowledge" of what might happen in the future.