Legal Eagle Wedding Watch, April 15: The Love Bug
As spring's warm breezes waft away the winter chill, even stuffy legal-types are feeling the urge to merge. LEWW has been getting all kinds of STDs from lawyers lately (Save The Dates—sheesh, people!), and we're exercising our clicking finger for the Great Place-Settings Mass Purchase of '07.
Speaking of that, now that registration with Williams-Sonoma is a mandatory precondition for marriage in most states, this week we're including links to our featured couples' W-S registries. If you love them, buy them kitchen stuff!
There were lots of lawyers this week, but we've narrowed the field to our customary three couples:
1. Carey Alpert and Jared Spitalnick
More on our featured couples, after the jump.
(Ed. note: The pictures are thumbnails. Click on each image to enlarge.)
1. Carey Alpert and Jared Spitalnick
(Buy them a cocktail shaker.)
The Case:
- Carey is an assistant district attorney in Queens. Very Law & Order, and Carey even looks a bit like ADA Casey Novak! Jared will be bringing home the bacon as an associate at O'Melveny & Myers (perhaps only figuratively—they had a Jewish ceremony).
- They met at the prestigious New York Law School ... wait, never mind. See below.
The Case Against:
- They both went to the University of Michigan for undergrad but only a tier-3 for law school (albeit one that bills itself as "immeasurably cooler").
- This groom looks very fit, but sadly, we think "Jared" has become a "fat name." Admittedly this doesn't make a lot of sense, given that the parable of Jared is about losing troubling amounts of weight, but there you have it. (America agrees: The name's popularity has plummeted nearly as fast as Jared's BMI, from 51st in 1998 to 137th in 2005.)
2. Anne Robinson and Kevin Moriarty
(Buy them a stockpot.)
The Case:
- Anne is Duke/Harvard; Kevin is Princeton/NYU. No blemishes there!
- They're cute. LEWW wants to pinch their cheeks. And their eyebrows are lined up perfectly, per the NYT's instructions.
- Our sources tell us that Kevin recently clerked for judicial diva and SCOTUS also-ran Edith Brown Clement. Impressive!
- The following law firm names appear in this write-up: Latham, Watkins, Pillsbury, Winthrop, Shaw, Pittman, Wilmer, Cutler, Pickering, Hale, & Dorr. We got a little choked-up just typing that.
The case against:
- These lovers' names have some unfortunate associations. Anne Robinson is the name of that awful English woman from The Weakest Link (who had to apologize for being, of all things, anti-Welsh!). As for Kevin, we can only say, "You've a magnificent brain, Moriarty. I admire it. I'd like to present it pickled in alcohol to the London Medical Society."
- Perhaps it's unfair to pick on Anne and Kevin for this, but the Times' weird conventions for referring to law firms are driving us crazy. The world needs to know: What distinguishes "a law firm" from "the law firm"? When it comes to New York, the Times seems to have a basic system down. Firms that interview at top-10 schools are crowned with that reverent "the," while all other firms get the vague and dismissive "a." Hence:
Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton & Garrison: "the New York law firm"
Cravath, Swaine & Moore: "the New York law firm"
Eaton & Van Winkle: "a New York law firm"
Liddle & Robinson: "a New York law firm"
But outside New York, all hell breaks loose:
Dow Lohnes: "the Washington law firm"We're all about the amplification of trivial distinctions into major status fetishes, but it spoils the fun if nobody can decipher the system. Please make your policy clearer, Times editors, and give O'Melveny associates the bliss of knowing exactly why they're looking down on Gibson associates!
Arnold & Porter: "a Washington law firm"
Steptoe & Johnson: "the Washington law firm"
Hogan & Hartson: "a Washington law firm"
Bingham McCutchen: "a Boston law firm"
Goodwin Procter: "the Boston law firm"
Sidley Austin: "the Chicago law firm"
Jenner & Block: "a Chicago law firm"
Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher: "a Los Angeles law firm"
O’Melveny & Myers: "the Los Angeles law firm"
3. Natalie Suhl and Colin Bernardino
(Buy them a set of water goblets.)
The Case:
- Natalie and Colin get bonus points for their Article III officiant: They were married by Judge Wilbur D. Owens of the Middle District of Georgia (Colin clerked for him).
- These two are seriously attractive. And apparently if you're very hot, you're allowed to fudge a little on that lined-up-eyebrows rule.
- Colin went to Dartmouth College and Emory law school, a nice combo of Ivy-League and the #1 underrated law school in America (Natalie is Wesleyan/Fordham).
The Case Against:
- Their ceremony was Saturday at the Atlanta Botanical Garden. Talk about a monsoon wedding—we hope they had a rain site! Brides always hear that rain is good luck ("Rain invokes feelings of intimacy and enchantment"), but we suspect that's just something people say to make you feel better, like "The makeup totally covers it," or "Lots of people don't break the glass on the first try."
The Verdict:
Latham Princeton Watkins Pillsbury Duke Winthrop Shaw Pittman NYU Wilmer Cutler Pickering Hale Harvard & Dorr—omigod, it's like a giant strawberry-chocolate trifle of elitism, and yes, we did save room for dessert! We're in awe of you, Team Robinson-Moriarty!
(41) Comments
Laurie, this is excellent. Thanks for shedding light on the mystery of which law firms get the definite article and which ones get the indefinite one!
I'm loving this column now! Bravo.
Registering for a madeleine tray makes as much sense as brides wearing white.
I don't know, you can't discount attractiveness enough to make them the winner. I vote #3.
Duke is a blemish.
Moriarty's hometown also has AIII cred, having been a losing party at the Supreme Court
http://www.law.cornell.edu/supct/html/93-518.ZS.html
Awesome: "America agrees: The name's popularity has plummeted nearly as fast as Jared's BMI, from 51st in 1998 to 137th in 2005.)"
Why is the Duke girl not on the Latham website?
OMG, Laurie's not joking: "Couples posing for [NYT wedding page] pictures should arrange themselves with their eyebrows on exactly the same level and with their heads fairly close together. Couple pictures should be printed in a horizontal format."
Anne Robinson also clerked for Clement, I believe.
Would Jared Spitalnik happen to be related to Ian Spitalnik of the Roslyn Spitalniks?
1:27 - yes
NYLS is not NYU!
Is it weird that there is no mention of how Anne/Kevin met?
What is up with all the recent Duke-bashing? Last time, Maryland was just jealous, but it seems to be carrying on. Admittedly, I can't speak for the undergrads . . . but still.
1:45: read carefully --- "They met at the prestigious New York Law School ... wait, never mind. See below. . . . They both went to a tier-3 for law school."
Anne and Kevin met and became engaged while both clerking for Judge Clement (so salacious!). The Judge was at the wedding, and gave her public blessing at the ritzy reception.
Also, Kevin is an obsessive reader of this blog -- Hi, Kevin!
1:46 - I don't think it is Duke-bashing, just amusement at how stereotypical some grads are (i.e. the mediocre daughter of a biglaw partner. At least she's not from Jersey).
Kevin only married Anne so he could win the Legal Eagle Wedding watch.
Great job sprucing up this column
Isn't there also (for firms really low on the totem pole) something like "a law firm in New York"?
Nice job, Laurie. I love the links to the wedding registries!
Thanks 1:38. And, mazal tov Jared and Carey.
Carey and Natalie are way cute.
Anyone notice Moriarty clerked for in the Western District of Washington after clerking with Judge Clement in the Fifth Circuit? Interesting change of pace. And where was Ms. Robinson during this west-cost stint?
Did Moriarty have a serious girlfriend at NYU?
Why, how absolutely beautiful! Such a beautiful set of clean, straight-toothed Caucasian couples who will surely spawn many beautiful Caucasian children with names like Ashlee, Devon, and Bryson. Nary a speck of flava to be found anywhere.
Wow, these couples are all hot.
I'd like to put in a request for extending the Legal Eagle Wedding Watch to gay power couples. Thanks!
Laurie has improved this column muchly (no offense to Laurie's predecessor!). Love the registries and the explanation of "a" vs. "the" NY law firm.
Sarcasm 9:32? Or do you just live on the east coast?
Couple 3 is hot, couple 1 is decent. Couple 2 is hot. NOT!
I wonder is Natalie would ever hook up with Kevin from the previous couple. I doubt it. His best chance seems to be with girls who are impressed by NYU.
having gone to law school with the "winning" bride, I'd like to point out, she's A LOT more attractive in the photo than I remember her being in school.
Wait - the Harvard girl is even less attractive in real life? How does she win this? Seriously, but them a stockpot.
If the winning groom reads this blog so much, why no comment from him?
"it's like a giant strawberry-chocolate trifle of elitism, and yes, we did save room for dessert! "
Lol!
Hm...I visited the NYLS page linked here and "immeasurably cool" thing is something the NY Observer wrote.
Couple 3 is definitely the hottest.
I hope they will forgive me.
Have a nice life.
Sassoun S.
The portion of this article that refers to the use of "the" versus "a" in referring to law firms in the NYT wedding announcements is derivative, to say the least, of an article that appeared in the LA/SF Daily Journal in its November 21, 2006 issue ("Decoding Wedding Announcements to Determine Law Firm Status"). The use of the Gibson v. O'Melveny example cannot possibly be coincidence. What's the story guys?
The portion of this article that refers to the use of "the" versus "a" in referring to law firms in the NYT wedding announcements is derivative, to say the least, of an article that appeared in the LA/SF Daily Journal in its November 21, 2006 issue ("Decoding Wedding Announcements to Determine Law Firm Status"). The use of the Gibson v. O'Melveny example cannot possibly be coincidence. What's the story guys?