holding that “if the statute does not provide expressly that its violation will deprive the parties of their right to sue on the contract, and the denial of relief is wholly out of proportion to the requirements of public policy or appropriate individual punishment, the right to recover will not be denied.” Id. at *13 (internal quotation marks omitted) (quoting Rosasco Creameries v. Cohen, 276 N.Y. 274, 11 N.E.2d 908, 909 (1937)). The court stated that “it ill becomes defendants, who are also bound by the Code of Professional Responsibility, to seek to avoid on ‘ethical’ grounds the obligations of an agreement to which they freely assented and from which they reaped the benefits.” Id. at *14 (quoting Benjamin v. Koeppel, 85 N.Y.2d 549, 626 N.Y.S.2d 982, 650 N.E.2d 829, 832-33 (1995) (<HOLDING>)). The court then weighed the equities, and
holding that when attorneys were acting as members of the firm with respect to the case in question section 504b1 applies to allow  fee sharing with any member whether that membership is regular or sporadic holding that an attorney was entitled to a quantum meruit recovery even though his oral contingency fee agreement with the client violated the ind rules of professional conduct which require a contingency fee agreement to be in writing holding provision in attorneys fee contract requiring client that terminated contract to immediately pay attorney fee equal to present value of attorneys interest in case was inconsistent with public policy and unconscionable holding that transferors request to recover fee it had paid was within the scope of the general statutory language allowing recovery of reasonable costs of participating in a proceeding even though other party was initially responsible for paying this fee and even though statute did not specifically provide that such recovery was allowed holding that a fee sharing arrangement between attorneys was enforceable even though one attorney failed to register with the state as required