New York

Civil Litigation Lawyers

Key takeaways

• Civil litigation covers non-criminal disputes over money, contracts, property, and conduct. The remedy is usually damages or a court order — not jail.
• New York’s Supreme Court is the trial court of unlimited original jurisdiction. The Court of Appeals is the state’s highest court.
• Complex business cases may be assigned to the Supreme Court’s Commercial Division, which applies a monetary threshold that varies by county — $500,000 in New York County, $150,000 in Kings County, $100,000 in Queens County.
• Deadlines are unforgiving. Under the CPLR, most written-contract claims run six years, most personal-injury and property-damage claims three years, and defamation and several intentional-tort claims only one year.
• Filing on time is not the end of it: the summons and complaint generally must be served within 120 days of commencement.
• Winning is only half the job. Collecting uses the enforcement tools in CPLR Article 52, including restraining notices and post-judgment disclosure.

What a civil litigation lawyer does — and how that differs from other lawyers

“Lawyer” is the general term for anyone licensed to practice law. A civil litigator is a lawyer who focuses on contested matters: disputes that are already headed toward a courtroom, an arbitration, or a negotiated resolution under the threat of one. A transactional lawyer drafts the contract; a civil litigator handles what happens when that contract breaks down. A criminal defense lawyer handles prosecutions brought by the government; a civil litigator handles private disputes between parties, where the stakes are money, property, and obligations rather than incarceration.

In practice, the work spans the entire arc of a dispute: evaluating the claim and the deadline, sending or answering a demand letter, filing or responding to a complaint, exchanging evidence in discovery, arguing motions, negotiating settlement, trying the case if it does not resolve, and enforcing or appealing the judgment afterward.

Most civil disputes never reach a jury. They settle, they are resolved in mediation or arbitration, or a judge decides them on written motions. A large part of a litigator’s value is judgment about which of those paths fits the situation, and how hard to push before taking it.

Are you the plaintiff or the defendant?

The posture changes almost everything about strategy, cost, and timing.

If you are bringing the claim (plaintiff or petitioner): the first questions are whether the claim is still timely, whether the defendant has assets worth pursuing, and whether a demand letter can resolve it before litigation costs accumulate. Collectability matters as much as liability — a judgment against a party with nothing to collect from is an expensive piece of paper.

If you have been sued (defendant or respondent): the clock starts immediately. There are deadlines to appear and answer, and a missed deadline can lead to a default. Early work focuses on whether the complaint can be attacked on the pleadings, whether the statute of limitations has run, whether the case belongs in this court at all, and whether there are counterclaims worth asserting.

VK Law represents both sides in civil matters. If you have been served with papers, the timing is worth discussing sooner rather than later.

Types of civil disputes we handle in New York

• Contract and commercial disputes: breach of contract, unpaid invoices and accounts, vendor and supplier disputes, and disagreements over the meaning or performance of an agreement.
• Business and partnership conflicts: shareholder and member disputes, breach of fiduciary duty, disputes over the internal affairs of a company, and claims arising from the sale of a business.
• Fraud and financial misconduct: misrepresentation, concealment, and related financial claims.
• Judgment enforcement and debt collection: pursuing payment on money judgments, and defending against enforcement.
• Real-property and commercial-lease disputes: conflicts over ownership, use, and commercial tenancy.
• Defamation and protected-speech disputes, including matters touched by New York’s anti-SLAPP provisions.

New Yorkers with contested wills, trust disputes, or estate conflicts are usually better served by our New York trust and estate attorneys, who focus on Surrogate’s Court practice. If your dispute involves a personal injury, our New York personal injury team handles those claims. If a matter is outside what we handle, we say so early rather than late.

Where your case will be heard: New York’s civil courts

Knowing which court a case belongs in matters, because the court sets the rules, the pace, and often the cost.

Supreme Court

Despite the name, the Supreme Court is New York’s trial court. The Unified Court System describes it as the trial court of unlimited original jurisdiction, which generally hears cases falling outside the jurisdiction of the more limited trial courts. Most substantial civil lawsuits in New York start here.

Commercial Division

The Commercial Division is a specialized part of the Supreme Court for complex commercial cases. Assignment depends on both the type of claim and a monetary threshold that varies by county. Under the current Uniform Rule § 202.70(a), the thresholds — exclusive of punitive damages, interest, costs, disbursements, and counsel fees — are:

Meeting the dollar figure is not enough on its own. Rule 202.70(b) lists the qualifying case types, which include breach of contract and business torts arising out of business dealings, transactions governed by the Uniform Commercial Code, commercial real-property transactions, and disputes over the internal affairs of business organizations. Some categories — shareholder derivative actions, commercial class actions, and dissolution proceedings — are heard without regard to the monetary threshold. Rule 202.70(c) excludes others even when the threshold is met, including suits to collect professional fees, residential real estate and landlord-tenant matters, and proceedings to enforce a judgment unless the underlying judgment came from the Commercial Division.

Assignment is not automatic. A party generally must request it by filing a Request for Judicial Intervention with a Commercial Division addendum within 90 days following service of the complaint. Parties can also consent to Commercial Division jurisdiction in the contract itself.

New York City Civil Court

The Civil Court of the City of New York hears claims for damages up to $50,000, along with matters referred to it by the Supreme Court. Its Small Claims Part handles claims up to $10,000, and its Housing Part handles landlord-tenant matters and housing standards cases. Outside the city, lower-value claims may be heard in county, city, town, or village courts.

Appellate courts

The Appellate Division is New York’s intermediate appellate court, divided into four departments. Appeals from Manhattan and the Bronx go to the First Department; the Second Department sits in Brooklyn. Above them sits the Court of Appeals, New York’s highest court, which in most situations hears a case only after an intermediate appellate court has already reviewed it.

Deadlines: New York’s statutes of limitations

A statute of limitations is the deadline for starting a lawsuit. Miss it and an otherwise strong claim can be dismissed on that basis alone. New York’s civil deadlines are set out in the Civil Practice Law and Rules (CPLR). Common ones include:

• Breach of a written contract — six years. CPLR 213 requires an action on a contractual obligation, express or implied, to be commenced within six years, subject to stated exceptions.
• Personal injury or injury to property — three years. CPLR 214 sets a three-year period for these claims, again subject to exceptions elsewhere in the article.
• Fraud — six years, or two years from discovery. Under CPLR 213(8), the period is the greater of six years from accrual or two years from when the plaintiff discovered the fraud, or could have discovered it with reasonable diligence.
• Defamation and certain intentional torts — one year. CPLR 215(3) covers libel, slander, assault, battery, false imprisonment, and malicious prosecution.

Two further points catch people out. First, commencing the action is not the last deadline: under CPLR 306-b, the summons and complaint generally must be served within 120 days after commencement, and a court may dismiss the action as to an unserved defendant. Second, claims against a city, county, or other public entity are subject to a separate notice requirement under the General Municipal Law that runs on a much shorter clock than the ordinary statute of limitations — if a government body may be involved, the timing question changes materially and is worth raising immediately.

These are general rules with genuine exceptions, and the date the clock starts depends on the facts. Confirming the correct deadline is one of the first things a civil litigation lawyer does.

How a New York civil case moves — and how long it takes

1. Assessment and demand. We evaluate the claim, confirm the applicable deadline, and often send a demand letter to test whether the matter can resolve without a lawsuit.
2. Pleadings. The action is commenced and the complaint served. The defendant answers or moves to dismiss.
3. Discovery. Both sides exchange documents and take deposition testimony to build the factual record. This is usually the longest and most expensive phase.
4. Motions. Many cases are narrowed or ended here, on a motion to dismiss or a motion for summary judgment.
5. Settlement, mediation, or arbitration. Most matters resolve before trial. Commercial Division cases go through a mandatory settlement conference after the note of issue is filed.
6. Trial. A minority of civil cases are tried.
7. Judgment and enforcement. A money judgment still has to be collected.
8. Appeal. Either side may seek review in the Appellate Division.

Duration varies widely, and any lawyer who promises a date at the outset is guessing. The rules do give some anchors. In the Commercial Division, a preliminary conference is held within 45 days of assignment to a justice. Parties who consent to the Division’s accelerated adjudication procedure are to complete all pre-trial proceedings and be ready for trial within nine months of filing the Request for Judicial Intervention. Outside that track, the realistic range depends on the county, the court’s calendar, the volume of discovery, and how motivated the other side is to resolve. We give an honest estimate once we have seen the file, and update it as the case develops.

What civil litigation costs in New York

Business and contract litigation is commonly billed hourly rather than on a contingency (percentage-of-recovery) basis, because the value of these cases is harder to predict than in a typical injury claim and the work is often defensive. Depending on the matter, other structures can make sense — a flat fee for a discrete stage, or a hybrid arrangement.

What actually drives cost is the volume of documents, the number of depositions, the amount of motion practice, and how far the case travels before it resolves. A dispute that settles after a well-built demand letter costs a fraction of one that goes through full discovery. Court fees, filing fees, deposition transcripts, and expert costs are separate from attorney’s fees and are generally the client’s responsibility regardless of outcome.

We discuss the likely path and the fee arrangement before you commit to anything, so the decision is an informed one. The initial consultation is free.

Collecting a judgment: CPLR Article 52

Winning a lawsuit and getting paid are two different projects. A money judgment is the court’s determination that one party owes another a sum — the court does not collect it for you. CPLR Article 52 governs the enforcement of money judgments and supplies the tools:

• Restraining notices. Under CPLR 5222, a judgment debtor served with a restraining notice is forbidden to sell, assign, transfer, or interfere with property in which they have an interest, subject to the statute’s exclusions. Served on a bank, it can reach an account.
• Post-judgment disclosure and information subpoenas. Article 52 lets a judgment creditor compel disclosure of matter relevant to satisfying the judgment, from the debtor and from third parties who may hold information about the debtor’s assets.
• Levies and income executions. Court-backed process directing a sheriff or marshal to reach non-exempt property or a portion of wages.

Timing matters. Under CPLR 211(b), a money judgment is presumed paid and satisfied after twenty years from when the party recovering it was first entitled to enforce it, and that presumption is conclusive subject to the section’s exceptions for written acknowledgment or payment. Twenty years sounds generous; in practice, assets move long before then. Effective enforcement starts with locating them and acting.

Our California judgment enforcement page covers the equivalent process for judgments entered in that state.

New York’s anti-SLAPP protections

A SLAPP — Strategic Lawsuit Against Public Participation — is a lawsuit brought less to win than to burden or silence someone for speaking on a matter of public interest. New York amended its anti-SLAPP provisions in 2020 (Chapter 250 of the Laws of 2020).

Civil Rights Law § 76-a defines an “action involving public petition and participation” to include a claim based on a communication in a place open to the public or a public forum in connection with an issue of public interest, or other lawful conduct in furtherance of free speech on such an issue or of the right of petition. Under Civil Rights Law § 70-a, a defendant in such an action may bring a claim or counterclaim to recover damages, including costs and attorney’s fees, where it is demonstrated — including through an adjudication under CPLR 3211(g) or 3212(h) — that the action was commenced or continued without a substantial basis in fact and law and could not be supported by a substantial argument for extending, modifying, or reversing existing law. Other compensatory damages require an additional showing about the purpose behind the suit.

If you have been sued over a review, a complaint to a government body, or public commentary, these provisions may be relevant to how the case is defended.

Counties and boroughs we serve

VK Law represents clients in civil disputes throughout New York State, including the five boroughs of New York City — Manhattan (New York County), Brooklyn (Kings County), Queens, the Bronx, and Staten Island (Richmond County) — as well as Nassau, Suffolk, and Westchester counties and upstate matters. Our New York office is at 11 Broadway, Suite 615, New York, NY 10004. Because Commercial Division thresholds and court practices differ by county, where a case is filed can meaningfully change how it proceeds.

Working with VK Law

Vaksman Khalfin, PC serves clients in California, Nevada, and New York. Our approach to civil litigation starts with what you actually want out of the dispute. Sometimes that is a fast, quiet resolution that preserves a business relationship. Sometimes it is a firm stand. Those are different strategies, and confusing them wastes money.

We handle contract and commercial disputes, business and partnership conflicts, fraud claims, judgment enforcement, and related civil matters. We explain where a case stands in plain language, we flag risks rather than burying them, and we tell you early if a matter is outside what we do. You can also compare our work in other states on our California civil litigation and Nevada civil litigation pages.

Talk with a New York civil litigation lawyer

To discuss your situation, call 877-780-4727 or reach our New York office at 212-655-5483. You can also schedule a free consultation. We will listen to what happened, identify any deadline that may apply, and explain the realistic options in plain English.

Related pages

• California Civil Litigation
• Nevada Civil Litigation
• Judgment Enforcement
• New York Personal Injury
• New York Trust & Estate
• New York Estate Planning
• New York City Office
• Referrals & Co-Counsel

Reviewed by: Robert B. Vaksman, Partner, Vaksman Khalfin, PC — admitted in New York. Attorney profile

Last reviewed: 08/28/2026