Disgraced New York attorney Marc Drier, who defrauded numerous clients out of millions in a Madoff type Ponzi scheme, was sentenced to 20 years in prison recently. According to this New York Times article, Drier funded his Ponzi scheme by stealing settlement funds from a client, and it snowballed from there. His reason for hatching this scheme? He was only making about $400,000 per year and felt inadequate and a sense of underachievement compared to some of his high society New York colleagues. So he went out and bought lots of yachts, cars, and art with his ill gotten gains.
Seriously? You can't get by on making more than ten times what the average American makes, so you start stealing from and defrauding countless clients to support a lavish lifestyle? And for this you only get 20 years in the slammer? The government argued for 145 years in prison--what I call a "good start" for a sentence.
Between frauds like this guy, sleazy commercials, and offensive solicitation letters that arrive at crash victims' mailboxes before they even get the hospital bill, it's no wonder that we have little to no credibility with the public. This sea of sleaze is one of the main reasons why I choose to blog. Our firm does not advertise, and I absolutely hate lawyer solicitation letters with every fiber of my being. They are the WORST thing ever that's happened to us as a profession, in my opinion.
At the end of the day, all I can offer is to share some of my information and experiences from over 20 years of representing accident victims by publishing this blog and some of the informational books I've written. If it helps answer someone's legal questions, fine. And if my blog helps an accident victim in the decision to hire me or another competent lawyer, that's OK too. As far as I'm concerned, taking the time to educate people in need in a tiny corner of the Internet world is infinitely superior to cheesy and tasteless commercials and offensive solicitation letters. Marc Drier is living proof that some of these "high powered" attorneys are not all they're cracked up to be.
I'll bet he never blogged. Sounds like he had too many toys to play with anyway...
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