Hell Is Other Lawyers

On Memorial Day weekend, 2014, law partners Paul Napoli and Marc Bern gathered with family and friends at Napoli’s nine-bedroom second home on the waterfront in the exclusive Hamptons village of Quogue, N.Y. Guests swam in the pool, strolled on the beach, and ate a lavish lunch. For years, the Bern and Napoli families had vacationed together in such places as Italy and Greece. Napoli’s children called Bern “Uncle Marc”; to Bern’s daughter, Napoli was “Uncle Paul.”

The holiday conviviality was built on the financial success of Napoli Bern, an 80-attorney firm that occupied the 74th and 75th floors of the Empire State Building. Napoli and Bern decorated their adjoining offices with almost identical paintings of Superman. Like the Man of Steel, the lawyers flew a lot, if by private jet. In 17 years of suing large corporations together, they amassed some $3 billion in settlements and verdicts. One huge payday came from representing people allegedly harmed by the diet drug combination known as fen-phen; another, from suing on behalf of Sept. 11 first responders sickened after their exposure to the dust and fumes at ground zero.