Rivers v. Multacom Corporation
- Laura Swain
- 1:24-cv-05585
- U.S. District Court · Southern District of New York
- 1
In Rivers v. Multacom Corporation, Chief Judge Swain denied Rivers’s request for appointed counsel without prejudice because the case was too early to assess.
Maurice D. Rivers’s request for appointed counsel and any appeal from this order were affected. The opinion does not describe any ruling on the merits of Rivers’s claims against Multacom Corporation or Dawgpound.com.
What happened
In Rivers v. Multacom Corporation, Maurice D. Rivers, who is representing himself, asked the court to appoint a volunteer lawyer for him.
The court said it was too early to assess the strength of the case. It denied the request without prejudice, meaning Rivers may renew it later. The court also denied special fee-free status for any appeal from this order.
Chief Judge Laura Taylor Swain directed the Clerk of Court to terminate the motions listed at ECF 12 and ECF 23 and certified that an appeal would not be taken in good faith.
The detailed version
- Rivers v. Multacom Corporation · No. 1:24-cv-05585
- Laura Swain
- May 30, 2025
Background
Maurice D. Rivers, who is proceeding without a lawyer, filed a motion asking the court to appoint volunteer counsel. The court had previously denied Rivers’s first request for appointed counsel in a November 19, 2024 order.
Ruling
The court stated that the case was still too early for it to assess the merits, meaning the underlying strength of Rivers’s claims. It therefore denied the motion for appointed counsel without prejudice to renewal at a later stage. The court directed the Clerk of Court to terminate the motions at ECF 12 and ECF 23.
The court also certified under 28 U.S.C. § 1915(a)(3) that any appeal from this order would not be taken in good faith. As a result, fee-free appeal status was denied for purposes of an appeal. The order addressed the request for counsel and appeal status; it did not decide the merits of the underlying action.
Read the full 1-page opinion on CourtListener, the free public archive maintained by the Free Law Project.