By The Ethics Reporter

The American legal system is built on the bedrock of due process. If a judge believes an attorney has acted improperly, there are strict rules in place to address it. In New York, under Part 130 of the Rules of the Chief Administrator (22 NYCRR 130-1.1), a judge can sanction an attorney for frivolous conduct. But to do so, the judge must issue an Order to Show Cause (OSC), giving the attorney formal notice and a meaningful opportunity to be heard on the record.

Rockland County Acting Supreme Court Justice David Fried knows these rules. And in his retaliatory March 30, 2026 decision in Adler v. Pollak, David Fried intentionally broke them by exploiting a technical loophole.

As covered in Part 1 of this series, Judge David Fried spent paragraphs of his decision defaming the plaintiff's attorney—the same attorney whose treatment by Fried triggered a bar complaint covered by The Ethics Reporter. Recognizing that his actions were under a microscope, David Fried needed a way to financially punish the attorney without triggering the due process requirements of an OSC.

If David Fried issued a formal sanction, the attorney could appeal, putting Fried’s own malfeasance, his courtroom tantrums, and his retaliatory motives on full display before an appellate panel.

So, David Fried played a dirty judicial trick.

At the end of his order, David Fried explicitly wrote: "The Court, in its discretion, declines to impose a formal Part 130 sanction upon said attorney." He framed this as an act of mercy, pretending he was taking the high road. But in the very next sentence, he ordered that the attorney and her law office be held "jointly and severally liable in the amount of $3,500.00" as an "award of costs."

By slapping the label of "costs" onto what is functionally a financial penalty, David Fried attempted to bypass the Order to Show Cause entirely. He didn't decline the formal sanction to do the attorney a favor; he declined it to protect himself. He failed to properly bring her in on an OSC during the inquest, and he knew a formal sanction without one would be immediately overturned.

This is not justice; it is legal sabotage. David Fried is using his knowledge of the Civil Practice Law and Rules (CPLR) to weaponize financial penalties while insulating himself from appellate review. He is acting as prosecutor, judge, and executioner, stripping a legal professional of her right to defend herself against his retaliatory defamation.

When a judge like David Fried twists the law to cover up his own procedural failures and exact petty revenge against those who report him to the ethics board, the system is fundamentally broken. This is a man who relies on loopholes to terrorize attorneys in his courtroom.

Stay tuned for Part 5: Judicial Misconduct in Plain Sight: Why David Fried Must Be Investigated by the Judicial Conduct Commission.