ADMINISTRATIVE MOTION REQUESTING CONTINUANCE OF DATES IN SCHEDULING ORDER Local Rule 7-11

JEFFREY S. WHITE, District Judge.

Pursuant to this Court's Civil Standing Order and Civil Local Rule 7-11, Defendant Viral Tolat hereby moves this Court for a short continuance of the dates set forth in the scheduling Order dated July 23, 2013. Good cause exists for this request in that Mr. Tolat has just retained new counsel to represent him in this matter, and his former attorneys are withdrawing as counsel of record in this action. Given the complexity of this matter and the very large number of pending and anticipated motions and filings in this case, this short requested continuance of 5 weeks is necessary in order to give Mr. Tolat's new counsel at Farella Braun + Martel LLP an opportunity to get up to speed on the case, and to accurately and professionally address these many pending and anticipated matters.

A short continuance is particularly important here, as many of the filings in the case are redacted or sealed and have not previously been available to Mr. Tolat's new counsel. The unredacted and sealed filings encompasse many if not most of the substantive filings to date, including three currently pending three motions — a voluminous motion for summary adjudication and for a preliminary injunction and a motion seeking terminating sanctions, which are supported by substantial evidentiary submissions — that Mr. Tolat's new counsel has not yet been able to access in unredacted or unsealed form. Indeed, Counsel will not be permitted under the Protective Order (Docket No. 50) to review material designated as protected until after this Court signs the order allowing new counsel to substitute in as "counsel of record." Under the current case schedule, Mr. Tolat's oppositions to those motions are due one week from today, on August 9, 2013. Given these circumstances, Mr. Tolat will be significantly prejudiced if the requested continuance is not granted and his new counsel are required to respond to these dispositive motions under the present timeline.

Mr. Tolat's new counsel spoke by telephone earlier today with Plaintiff's counsel, Christopher Sargent, and requested a short continuance of the hearing on the pending motions from September 27, 2013 to November 1, 2013. (See Declaration of John L. Cooper in Support of Administrative Motion Requesting Continuance of Dates in Scheduling Order ("Cooper Decl.") ¶ 6.) Mr. Sargent responded that he did not have authority to agree to such a request but said he would communicate the request to Jack Russo and someone from his office would get back to Mr. Tolat's new counsel. Since that phone conversation Mr. Russo has communicated to Mr. Tolat's current counsel of record, Steven Eckhaus, by email that the requested continuance is rejected. (Id. ¶ 7.) Because of the extremely short deadlines under the current case schedule, Mr. Tolat is now forced to seek the Court's assistance by filing the instant Motion.

This Motion is being filed at the first available opportunity, as new counsel have just been retained today. Other than the hearing dates addressed by this Motion, which have been set consistent with dates shown as "available" on the Court's calendar, there are no other dates pending in this matter that would be affected by this requested continuance.1

For these reasons, Mr. Tolat hereby requests that the Court modify the existing schedule as set forth in this Court's operative scheduling order (Docket No. 109) by continuing those deadlines to the new dates set forth below:

[PROPOSED] ORDER

IT IS HEREBY ORDERED THAT good cause exists to support the granting of Defendant Tolat's administrative motion for a continuance of the deadlines set forth in the Court's prior scheduling order (Docket No. 109). Accordingly, Tolat's motion is GRANTED. The Court hereby enters the following revised scheduling Order:

IT IS SO ORDERED.