By Frank Parlato
Arbitration
The case is Nusbaum v Riordan. The arbitration order came on November 4, 2024. Both parties share the arbitration fee. If one party paid more, they could ask for it back later. A regular lawsuit by a judge and a jury would cost the parties zero. That’s what taxes are meant to pay for – a system of justice.
But attorney Ed Nusbaum demanded arbitration. He always prefers this to open court. In fact he won’t represent a client unless they agree that if they get into a dispute with him – say for overbilling or not doing his legal job right – they can’t take him to court – where the public can attend and hear the proceedings.
He demands arbitration.
By January, both Riordan and Nusbaum agreed on Antonio Robaina, a former judge, as arbitrator. He billed at six hundred dollars an hour. They guessed it would cost at least ten thousand.
On January 16, Tricia Lindsay, counsel for Karen Riordan, said they were available. But her client was indigent. She couldn’t pay for her own attorney – Lindsay, let alone the arbitrator Robaina.
Robaina declined the case. Riordan had not refused arbitration. She just couldn’t pay.
The court order had said either party could pay upfront and settle with other party later. Nusbaum filed for contempt instead. He wanted Riordan hit with sanctions. Jail, maybe, if the money didn’t come.
He didn’t mention in his motion that Robaina had declined or that Riordan had asked for a waiver – so she could have justice without paying a premium.
Her attorney, who she has been unable to pay, Lindsay called Nusbaum’s contempt motion as “bad faith” and asked Judge John Kawanewsky to deny it and make Nusbaum pay the cost—for filing the motion, hiding the truth, trying to turn poverty into contempt.
To the Beginning
Edward Nusbaum, family law. Westport, Connecticut. A man who by profession trafficks in dissolution—dividing households, cutting custody, tallying debts and dreams into shares – with him getting the lion’s portion.
In 2020, Karen Riordan was his client. His retainer was no ordinary contract. It mandated no jury. No courtroom. Just a single arbitrator. A practicing attorney – from the Connecticut Bar’s Family Law Section based in Fairfield County. Nusbaum’s home field.
The client could not question his bills. Pay or go to arbitration – and an arbitration without the normal rules of getting to the truth – through discovery and deposition and ultimately a trial – and cross examination.
Arbitration protected inflated bills and unfulfilled work from being known by the client and the public.
The Retainer
In 2020, Karen Riordan hired Edward Nusbaum to represent her in a custody battle and divorce from Christopher Ambrose. She gave him an almost $40,000 deposit.
In four months, Nusbaum filed not a single motion. No depositions. No hearings. No court. He sent emails and made phone calls.
Some of the calls were for information about Riordan. How much money did she have? Could she liquidate her teacher’s retirement. Could her father help? A friend? A loan to fund the litigation.
Hemlock Hill
The marital home was 1 Hemlock Hill. Westport, Connecticut. Judge Jane Grossman ordered it sold.
Nusbaum arranged the sale. He coordinated with the Guardian ad Litem, opposing counsel, the real estate agent. As his invoices would show, it was time-consuming. At $750 per hour it was expensive. He billed for the calls. The emails. The time spent placing himself between her and her home’s equity.
When she tried to stop it—invoking her legal right to rescind the agreement within seventy-two hours—Nusbaum told the court she had agreed. He never mentioned her objection. The house was sold. The money—$64,000—was placed in his escrow.
Court Date
In August, 2020, Riordan demanded they return to the hearing which was never completed. Where her children were taken and she was denied the right to utter a single word, call a single witness, or present any evidence. Nusbaum shocked his client when he told her, he needed another $100,000 to appear.
She asked what happened to the $40,000 retainer? What happened to the $64,000 he took from her share of the house? He said it was his. He earned it.
Unless she produced another hundred thousand dollars – get it from her retirement, her dad, borrow it – he simply would not appear.
She asked for a detailed accounting for the first $100,000. He pointed to the retainer. She couldn’t ask.
She fired him and asked for the money in escrow back.
The Seat
Riordan discharged him.
But on the August 2020 court date, Nusbaum entered the courtroom, not as counsel. Judge Grossman told him he could not speak. He sat not beside his former client but beside her warring husband Christopher Ambrose, his attorney, and the GAL Jocelyn Hurwitz.
Later, he charged Riordan $1,875—for the seat he took at the opposing counsel’s table.
Nusbaum Wants More
The money -$64,000- sat in Nusbaum’s escrow – skimmed from the forced sale of Riordan’s house on Hemlock Hill. By law he just could not take it. He needed her consent to move the money from his escrow account to his private account.
He wanted the money. But he had done nothing. She wanted the money held in escrow back. She refused to let him take it.
Nsubaum sued – but not in court – he wanted arbitration. And no discovery.
The Invoices
Without any discovery, all Riordan had to go on was the invoices – bills showing phone calls without information about what was discussed. Emails charged without content. Calls to people irrelevant to her case. No logs. No documents. Just the retainer and the bill.
Only once did Nusbaum appear before a judge. Not to advocate. But in a status conference he neglected to inform Riordan about asked that Riordan’s share from the forced sale of her marital home be paid to him. Nusbaum billed for texts to Riordan’s friends and family, for conversations and status conferences no one recorded. He billed for calls with judges. With lawyers. He met with Harold Haldeman—$1,450 an hour, and no one knows why. Riordan never met him. He conferred with Aidan Welsh. Three times. No role in the case. No explanation.
He billed for documents never produced, for an inheritance never pursued. His retainer says: she cannot question the bill.
One thing stood out. Nusbaum billed for a lot of conversations with opposing counsel, and the Guardian ad Litem, (GAL) Jocelyn Hurwitz – some 36 times.
Here Riordan had a chance at least to measure Nusbaum’s services. Nusbaum put on his invoices only who he spoke to and for how long. Nusbaum billed down to the tenth of an hour.
Hurwitz, the GAL also invoiced down to a tenth of an hour -and she invoiced Riordan.
Since Riordan was being billed by both the GAL and her attorney, if they spoke to each other the calls ought to match.
Nusbaum billed Riordan for 36 calls he made to Hurwitz. But Hurwitz billed only twelve calls to Nusbaum.
Nusbaum charged for 24 calls to Hurwitz that never happened.
On May 7, May 12, May 18. And then again—May 20 to June 1. June 4, June 9, June 10, June 11, June 15, June 22, June 25, June 30.
More calls, more billing—July 17, July 21 (twice), July 22, July 24, July 27, July 28, July 29, July 31. Then August 13, August 24, August 25.
Nusbaum billed thousands of dollars for these calls to Hurwitz and spoke to her for hours – or so it said on his invoices. But Hurwitz did not answer a single call on any of those days. Nusbaum billed for phantom telephone calls.
Is it fraud?
Nusbaum also charged for thirty-two emails to Hurwitz. it appears based on Hurwitz’s invoices, 16 were phantom.
He billed for five status conferences. Three evidently did not exist.
And now, Nusbaum is suing for what’s left of her home. Her $64,000.
Pattern
It was not an isolated matter. There was a pattern.
Christopher Homonnay, a corporate man with a failing marriage, had turned to Nusbaum. Paid his retainer. Watched the fees climb. By the end, he owed $397,831.28. He filed suit—breach of good faith. The case did not go to trial. It went to arbitration. The records sealed.
There was Harrison Brubosky. Divorce. Another retainer. Another client who claimed betrayal. Brubosky said there had been collusion between Nusbaum and opposing counsel. Nusbaum responded with a lawsuit to collect $741,959.76. Arbitration again. No published decision.
Sabina Brandt. Once married. Nusbaum sued her for $80,254 in legal fees. She countered—accused him of misconduct, of conspiring to bleed her dry. Arbitration. No record.
David DeLeo. Malpractice. Twelve counts. One allegation was that Nusbaum had agreed, on DeLeo’s behalf, to supervised visitation of his own child. Without his knowledge or consent.
That case went public. Filed in court. It looked serious. Disbarment. Public disgrace. Maybe criminal charges. But the appeal reversed it on a technicality. Nusbaum was spared.
After that, there were no more public courtrooms. No more depositions. No reporters. Every new client signed the agreement: arbitration only. No judge. No jury. No transcripts.
Still, stories emerged. Fees into the hundreds of thousands. No motions filed. No judgments won. No children returned. The structure repeated itself. The Ed Nusbaum ritual: a steep retainer, mandatory arbitration, and refusal to release files.
Nusbaum wants to arbitrate his dispute with Riordan. She has no money left. He wants contempt. Wants the court to pressure her. Maybe get her to yield. Maybe let him keep what he already took.
The hearing that had been scheduled for tomorrow has been canceled by the court.
To be continued.
