High-profile New York lawyer says he tried to advise judge in Trump civil fraud case

This story originally appeared on NBCNewYork.com.

A high-profile New York real estate lawyer, whose law license was once suspended, said he approached the judge presiding over Donald Trump’s civil fraud case to offer unsolicited advice about a law at issue in the case.

Attorney Adam Leitman Bailey made the claim during an interview with NBC New York, saying he spoke to Judge Arthur Engoron three weeks prior to the judge’s February decision to fine the former president $454 million for falsely inflating the value of his assets.

The judge, through a court spokesman, denied impropriety and said he was “wholly uninfluenced” by Mr. Bailey. New York’s judicial oversight body has now launched an investigation into the alleged interaction, according to sources familiar with the matter.

"I actually had the ability to speak to him three weeks ago," Bailey said, during an on-camera interview with NBC New York on Feb. 16, the day the judge's decision was due. "I saw him in the corner [at the courthouse] and I told my client, 'I need to go.' And I walked over and we started talking … I wanted him to know what I think and why…I really want him to get it right."

NBC New York asked a spokesman for Engoron whether the judge had spoken with Bailey about any legal issues surrounding the Trump civil fraud matter, and whether the alleged interaction had been appropriate.

"No ex parte conversation concerning this matter occurred between Justice Engoron and Mr. Bailey or any other person. The decision Justice Engoron issued February 16 was his alone, was deeply considered, and was wholly uninfluenced by this individual,” said Al Baker, a spokesman for the New York State's Office of Court Administration, in a written statement

In legalese, the term "ex parte" describes a communication between a party or their legal counsel and a judge about a pending case without all the parties present.

Bailey, who said he is no fan of Trump, was not involved in the civil case and is not connected to any of the four separate criminal cases against the former president. He said he knows the judge from having appeared before him as a litigant "hundreds of times."

Bailey said he "explained to him" that a fraud statute at issue in the case was not intended to be used to shut down a major company, especially in a case without clear victims. He said such a ruling would hurt New York's economy. Engoron had rejected a similar argument raised by the Trump team in court.

"He had a lot of questions, you know, about certain cases. We went over it," Bailey said.

Baker, the court spokesman, did not reply when asked whether the judge had engaged with Bailey or asked questions.

State legal conduct rules govern interactions with judges about their pending cases outside of official courtroom proceedings.

The New York State Rules of Judicial Conduct state that "a judge shall not initiate, permit, or consider ex parte communications, or consider other communications made to the judge outside the presence of the parties or their lawyers." The rules do allow an exception to "obtain the advice of a disinterested expert," if a judge gives notice to the parties in the case and gives them the opportunity to respond.

The New York State Commission on Judicial Conduct will now consider whether the rules of judicial conduct were violated in this instance, according to sources familiar with the matter.

The commission’s administrator, Robert Tembeckjian, declined to comment, citing a statute on confidentiality.

Christopher Kise, a member of the Trump defense team which has repeatedly criticized Engoron’s handling of the case, said if Bailey’s claims are true, it casts doubt on the integrity of the process.

"The code doesn’t provide an exception for 'well, this was a small conversation' or 'well, it didn’t really impact me' or 'well, this wasn’t something that I, the judge, found significant," Kise said. "No. The code is very clear."

Several experts consulted by NBC New York said the rules are meant not only to prevent outside influence, but also any appearance of outside influence.

Retired Presiding New York Appellate Justice Alan Scheinkman said he has questions about Bailey's account. However, he said in a case as consequential as the Trump civil fraud matter, if Bailey's allegation is true, it would have been prudent for Engoron to disclose the interaction to both parties in the case.

"If there's any substantive dialogue about the law in a pending case, it should be disclosed," Scheinkman said.

In a second on-camera interview with NBC New York, Bailey stood by his account, but said he didn’t think he or the judge had done anything wrong. Bailey said they only spoke about the law.

"We didn't even mention the word Donald Trump," Bailey said. When asked if he thought the judge understood him to be talking about the Trump case, he said: "Well, obviously we weren't talking about the Mets."

Scheinkman, who now teaches legal ethics at Pace University Law School, said the interaction described by Bailey is "very troubling."

"The fact that this lawyer made these statements — unprompted — during a recorded TV interview should raise serious concerns," Scheinkman said.

Professor Bruce Green, director of Fordham Law School's Center for Law and Ethics, said it's not against the rules for judges and lawyers to talk about the law in the abstract.

"Judges don't have to live in a bubble,” Green said. "Whether a judge's hallway conversation with a lawyer is permissible or impermissible depends on the conversation."

A spokeswoman for Attorney General Letitia James, who brought and won the civil case against Trump, declined to comment on Bailey's claims.

Bailey has appeared as an expert for two decades in The New York Times' "Ask Real Estate" column. In Nov. 2011, he sued the Trump Soho condominium, alleging that buyers were misled. In a settlement, Bailey’s clients got most of their money back and Trump admitted no wrongdoing.

In 2019, a New York appellate court suspended Bailey's law license for four months for misconduct in two separate matters. Bailey improperly used his cellphone to take photos of witnesses during an arbitration hearing and threatened to share them with the media, court records show. In the other incident, Bailey told a tenant in a case that they "should just kill themselves," according to the appellate court’s decision.

New York’s Rules of Professional Conduct say that lawyers should not “state or imply an ability” to improperly influence a judge.

Since February, both Bailey and the judge’s spokesman have stopped responding to NBC New York’s questions, declining to provide details that might shed light on the disparity between Bailey’s account of a dialogue, and the written denial from the court spokesman.

The Commission on Judicial Conduct investigates alleged improprieties involving state judges. Of nearly 3,000 complaints filed in 2023, only about 200 resulted in an investigation, according to the commission’s data. About one in four investigations resulted in a finding of wrongdoing, with consequences ranging from confidential letters of caution to a judge vacating the bench.

Investigations by the Commission on Judicial Conduct are conducted in secret, and can take anywhere from months to more than a year, according to recent annual reports.