A lawyer fired by an estate cannot sue a colleague based on suggestions that the other attorney had “intentionally disparaged” his work to their superior, the Appellate Division, First Department, has ruled.

Writing for a unanimous panel in Steinberg v. Schnapp, 103717/08, Justice Eugene Nardelli (See Profile) upheld the dismissal of a lawsuit brought by Robert E. Steinberg, who had been hired as trial counsel for the estate, against Stanley Schnapp, the estates’s general counsel.