Thirty years ago, James Wacht was a young real estate attorney whose clients included a rough-around-the-edges property management firm named Sierra Realty Corp. “They were your typical old-school real estate guys. Yellers and screamers, table pounders,” he said. “But I got along with them.”
Newly married and looking to start a family, Wacht decided to leave the legal business, and he joined Sierra in 1989. Today, the 63-year-old is president of the commercial brokerage Lee & Associates NYC — part of a national network that Sierra’s office and retail leasing business merged with in 2011.