It’s not like there isn’t a huge inventory of bad things to say about Marc Dreier. He destroyed his firm, raided its escrow, is under indictment and sits in a cell. But as if that’s not enough, Noeleen Walder forces the issue with one of most pathetic smears imaginable in the New York Lawyer, purportedly describing how Dreier’s “Luxurious Life” Was on Display at Firm.
Legal secretary Brad Lowary went to Dreier LLP for the money. Mr. Lowary said he earned $95,000 a year, which was $35,000 above market rate, during his 18 months at the firm.
Mr. Lowary, a legal secretary for 15 years, said he always “thought it was a little odd” that the firm’s founder and sole equity partner, Marc S. Dreier “was living such a luxurious life” even for a litigator at the top of his game.
That’s right. The “luxurious life” is through the eyes of a legal secretary at the firm. After all, if one wants to know the parameters of propriety, certainly the sensibilities of a legal secretary provide the proper measure.
So what are these outlandish luxuries displaying the evil Dreier’s misuse of client and firm funds?
Mr. Lowary, 35, said there was “so much waste” at the now bankrupt firm – huge bouquets of fresh flowers on every floor, secretaries making “well over $100,000, plus overtime” and overstaffed departments.
He recalled one “lavish” party in the Hamptons, at which Mr. Dreier actually hired a plane to fly overhead with the message “Dreier lawyers rock.”
Flowers and well-paid staff? The man is an animal! As for the flyover, it doesn’t actually cost very much, though it might seem extravagant to a legal secretary. But what else does Lowary have to say about his terrible former employer, who paid him far more than he thinks he was worth.
“He would fire people on the spot if he didn’t like you,” Mr. Lowary said
At parties, Mr. Dreier morphed from the “stern” and “bitter” boss into a completely different person, Mr. Lowary said.
After a few drinks, a red-faced Mr. Dreier would become “sloppy” and “jovial.”
“I’ve never known a managing partner to behave in such a strange and opposite way in and out of the office,” Mr. Lowary remarked.
It sure makes me feel better about being able to hold my liquor, provided I don’t have more than one drink, lest some legal secretary spill my secret “sloppy” and “jovial” lifestyle. Hoo boy. And I bet that Lowary had a close and loving relationship with many managing partners, since we know how managing partners flock around legal secretaries to gain their approval.
There is much about Marc Dreier worthy of concern and comment, such as what became of client funds and what one man did to a firm of hard-working and responsible lawyers. But this attempt to personally smear him, based upon a low level employee whose perspective at its absolute best is essentially meaningless, is simply pathetic. It’s outrageous that a reputable legal publisher would print such a story, or that anyone claiming to be a journalist would have written it. Absolutely pathetic.
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You seem a tad confused as to the purpose of the media in American life. Did you imagine that it was there to provide balanced opinion, thoughtful analysis or even factual recording of any situation? Because not only has that hardly ever happened but it is not even a target to aim for. On the rare occasions when the media does do a good job it is unlikely to be praised and is often condemned.
“You want the truth? You can’t handle the truth”.
Oh, come on. This one’s just plain old vanilla bad. I mean, seriously, fresh flowers? That’s it? He squandered $400 million as proven by fresh flowers? His lifestyle was “luxurious” through the eyes of a legal secretary? Please. It doesn’t matter how badly she wanted to go after Dreier. This was just garden-variety awful. It wouldn’t have passed muster in a junior high school newspaper.
You are all missing the point in any event. He lived lavishly by anyone’s standards – spent enormous amounts of money on leased apartments for himself and his ex before buying at One Beacon, spent enormous amounts of money flying in paid help (girls) to decorate his yacht for parties, spent enormous amounts of money procuring “dates”, paid extravagant salaries to employees so they would not question his method of operation, lived like a king at his Quogue home (although clearly given his ilk he should have been in East Hampton),and all the while never thought he had to pay his debts,actual or metaphysical, for every dollar he ever earned, he spent two. Someone should have told him that money cannot buy height.