Tuesday, October 17, 2023
Dorothy was my mentor first and then became my friend. I am so saddened to learn of her passing. To her daughter Lisa and the rest of her family, my deepest condolences. Dorothy was a beautiful woman, inside and out. We met in 2006 when she hired me to work with her at the law firm Paul, Weiss. We worked closely together for six years and formed a warm friendship. She oftentimes shared with me the fun weekends she had with her daughter and grandsons. She was so proud and delighted by them; eager to share a cute anecdote that had occurred. Photos adorned her office, and a quick smile came to her face when she spoke of you all.
Dorothy was instrumental in helping me develop and nurture my career in legal marketing, something I have been doing now for 17 years. Dorothy helped me in too many ways to list, but to this day, she is the person I credit for guiding me to embrace and really lean into the skills I already had – in a very competitive industry where it is easy to not feel good enough. When I work with younger people now, I try to model myself after Dorothy. Under her mentorship, I grew in my career at the firm and as an individual. At the top of the list of the many things Dorothy taught me was grace.
Dorothy became my friend after working together for several years, and when I left in 2012 to move back to Seattle, we remained in touch with visits when I was in town or through texts and phone calls. Sadly, we fell out of contact during the pandemic, and I only learned of her passing last night.
I have so many memories of Dorothy from our time working together and time we spent outside of the office. My first December at Paul, Weiss included a secret gift exchange where Dorothy drew my name. She gave me a beautiful glass bead necklace from Henri Bendel’s. I was so new to NYC that I didn’t even know of the iconic store – my colleagues were the ones to tell me what a nice gift it was that she’d given me. I still have and wear the necklace and always think of Dorothy when I see it. Another time Dorothy took me to lunch at Bloomingdale’s and then we went shoe shopping. We saw this petite woman dressed in all black with a huge-brimmed black hat amidst all the energized shoe shoppers – there was a big sale – and we soon realized it was Catherine Zeta-Jones! My last visit with Dorothy was in 2018 or 2019, when I was in town. Dorothy invited me to meet her at her apartment – what a treat! Before we headed out to lunch. Dorothy was one of the best people I met in New York. She was compassionate, understanding, gracious, and kind. I will miss her deeply.
