From bad to worse: “According to a declaration by the firm’s Controller John Provenzano, millions of dollars owed to clients appeared to be missing from the firm’s accounts.” (Dan Slater, WSJ law blog; American Lawyer; earlier).
In general clients who suffer by a law firm’s defalcations, and cannot be made whole by suits against the law firm, are at risk of losing all or most of the money they’d entrusted; however, New York, where the Dreier firm is headquartered, at last report afforded broader provisions for clients than did most states. I took note four years ago of the not-especially-generous state of lawyerdom’s collective “client security” funds.
P.S. More on client security funds in comments. Larry Ribstein has thoughts on the Dreier firm’s unusual organizational structure. As for all the “dating Maxim models” stuff about the extravagance of Dreier’s personal life, that is pure tabloid-style sensationalism and will under no account be exploited in this space.