*123In disqualifying R&E from continuing as counsel to 305 Corp. and Views, Inc., IAS cited a potential conflict of interest between counsel and its co-party-defendant clients. This issue has now been rendered moot by the removal of R&E as a party defendant, but even if R&E had remained in the action, no conflict in any relevant sense is discernible here (Green v Fischbein, Olivieri, Rozenholc & Badillo, 135 AD2d 415, 420-421 [Green II]). If plaintiff himself were implicated in the "conflict” that would be another story, but plaintiff’s alleged solicitude for potential conflict between his adversaries is totally rejected by the defendant clients themselves, which should have concluded the court’s inquiry on this score. The alternative ground for the court’s disqualification ruling was a potential collision with the "advocate witness” rule (Code of Professional Responsibility DR 5-102). This ground is without merit, since the associate attorney of R&E who negotiated with plaintiff’s legal representative with respect to plaintiff’s purported "abandonment” of his apartment is not an "obvious” witness under DR 5-102 (A). That would be a prerequisite for the drastic remedy of disqualification here, inasmuch as the mentioned negotiations, if relevant and admissible at all, are reflected in ample correspondence, and plaintiff has a witness under his control who can testify upon the matter (Plotkin v Interco Dev. Corp., 137 AD2d 671, 674). Concur— Murphy, P. J., Sullivan, Kassal, Wallach and Smith, JJ.