Dean Pillarella is an experienced appellate partner in the New York office of Lewis Brisbois. 

Mr. Pillarella primarily drafts and argues substantive motions and appeals in the New York trial and appellate courts in commercial, civil rights, general liability, New York Labor Law, premises liability, products liability, professional liability, sexual abuse/misconduct, and rideshare and transportation matters, among others.

He has experience at all stages of appellate practice in the state courts, including pre- and post-appeal motion practice and at the Court of Appeals stage.

Mr. Pillarella also serves as vice chair of the firm's Child Victims Act/Human Trafficking & Assault (CVA/HTA) Practice, where he primarily drafts and argues motions and appeals on behalf of institutional defendants in state and federal New York Child Victims Act and Adult Survivors Act matters. Many of these matters concern alleged sexual abuse dating as far back as fifty years and invoke nuanced questions of procedural and substantive law. Mr. Pillarella has successfully leveraged his appellate experience to obtain multiple pre- and post-answer victories on behalf of his clients.

Prior to joining Lewis Brisbois, Mr. Pillarella was primary appellate counsel at a corporate and insurance defense firm in New York City, where he handled matters from inception through trial and appeal. There, his briefing and argument in Belfand v. Petosa, 196 A.D.3d 60 (1st Dep’t 2021), culminated in a signed opinion of the Appellate Division, First Department, effectively preventing private suits against the State of New Jersey in New York as a matter of constitutional law. The opinion was subsequently cited by the Supreme Court of Alabama and published in the New York Law Journal and the New York City Bar Association’s CPLR 2021 Update. 

Mr. Pillarella is an avid writer and student of the law with an unwavering passion for New York civil practice. He has professionally published on topics ranging from New York civil practice, to constitutional and civil-rights law, to criminal law and procedure. His essay Utilizing CPLR 2001 to Cure Service Defects: 10 Years of Ruffin was featured in the New York Law Journal to commemorate the tenth anniversary of Ruffin v. Lion Corp., 15 N.Y.3d 578 (2010), and its increasing impact on New York service of process. His essay The Informal Appearance, Its Origins, Instances, and Impact, was cited in a recent addition to Professors Siegel and Connors' New York Practice, the definitive treatise on New York civil practice. The New York State Academy of Trial Lawyers also recently cited the article as providing a "thorough" discussion of the “informal appearance” doctrine.

He is a member of the New York State Bar Association and New York City Bar Association, where he sits on the Legal History Committee.

Mr. Pillarella earned his Juris Doctor from the Elisabeth Haub School of Law at Pace University in 2018. He earned a Bachelor of Arts in philosophy and history from the University of Scranton in 2015.

Publications

Representative Matters

Legal Alerts

Military Service

Professional Presentations

• Appellate Trial Monitoring, An Overview, Lewis Brisbois Appellate Webinar, May 29, 2025.
• CPLR 5501(a)(1) and the Reviewability of Final Orders on Appeal From a Final Judgment: Reconciling a Departmental Schism, New York County Lawyers Association (Committee on Appellate Courts), November 4, 2024.
• Recent Important Appellate Decisions & Expected Impacts on N.Y. Litigation (Child Victims Act and Adult Survivors Act), Lewis Brisbois Appellate Webinar, March 31, 2023.
• Interstate Sovereign Immunity in the Wake of Franchise Tax Bd. of Cal. v. Hyatt, 139 S. Ct. 1485 (2019), New York City Bar Association (Legal History Committee), February 17, 2021.

Admissions

• State Bar Admissions
  • District of Columbia
  • New York
• United States District Courts
  • United States District Court for the Eastern District of New York
  • United States District Court for the Southern District of New York
• United States Courts of Appeals
  • United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit
  • United States Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit
• United States Supreme Court

Associations

• New York State Bar Association
• New York City Bar Association
• New York County Lawyers Association
• Columbian Lawyers Association of the First Department

Education

Elisabeth Haub School of Law at Pace University

Juris Doctor, 2018

University of Scranton

Bachelor of Arts, 2015