In a Dec. 22, 2022, column, "Law Firms Are Not Just 'Any Person,'" the authors discuss a ruling made in Astraea N.Y. City v. Rivada Networks, 592 F. Supp. 3d 181 (S.D.N.Y. March 22, 2022), where the District Court judge quashed a routine post-judgment information subpoena served on counsel for the judgment debtor.

The court held that although post-judgment discovery can under New York and federal law be sought from "any person," that term in its view "would not ordinarily be taken as including 'any law firm' nor does it say 'or that person's lawyers.'" The court concluded that the words "'any person' [do not] overcome the force and value of the policy that the lawyer may not reveal the confidences of her client, even though the client himself may well be compelled to disclose them …. The prospect that after judgment is entered the successful party could discover from the losing attorney things that attorney had learned would inject uncertainty into the whole course of her representation and the trial."

Respectfully, the Astraea ruling is wrong and should not be followed. The right to seek appropriate post-judgment discovery from a judgment debtor's lawyer is firmly established under New York law, which the District Court in Astraea overlooked. (The court ruled summarily based upon letter submissions that did not cite any helpful precedent.)