Legal Eagle Wedding Watch: September 17, 2006

After two consecutive weeks of relatively slim pickings, lawyer weddings in the New York Times came roaring back with a vengeance. Picking out just three to write about was quite a challenge. Near misses: Nina Fletcher and Christopher McIntyre; Jennifer Yen and J. Peyton Worley; and Abigail Greene and Jeff Goldman.*
Here are the three couples that did make the final cut:

1. Adam Berger and Stephen Frank

2. Sheila Kadagathur and Jake Phillips (link unavailable)

3. Jessica Marshall and Brian Glatt

Learn which couple prevails, after the jump.
* Random aside: This has nothing to do with law — although the groom’s name is “Juris.” But what was up with the Collier/Kupris wedding announcement? One of you notes:

Check out the Chandra Collier/Juris Kupris wedding announcement. It seems completely out of place. Neither family is from New York. She went to Indiana. He is a fitness trainer. The announcement is very, very short.

Why was it included? The picture. He looks like a male model.

I guess this means you can get into the Times if you have an impressive job, an impressive family, or an impressive photograph.

We actually take issue with this reader’s characterization of Kupris as a “male model.” Male models — the runway models, not the catalog ones — tend to be skinnier (the “male waif” look is still in).
We think Kupris looks more like the shirtless guys they put on the covers of Harlequin romance novels…


1. Adam Berger and Stephen Frank
Résumé score: 9.5. Because they’re featured in the special Vows column, which provides a more narrative account of weddings, there’s less résumé information about Adam and Steve than there would be for a typical couple. But since we know Steve Frank, so we can fill in some of the blanks.
(Disclosure: Steve Frank was our boss at the college newspaper.)
Both men went to Harvard College, where they were suite mates. Adam is now a vice president at Goldman Sachs. KA-CHING! Steve is an associate at the Death Star Cravath, Swaine & Moore. Before joining Cravath, he clerked on the Second Circuit (for Judge Sack), attended Harvard Law School, and worked as a financial journalist and television reporter (and published a book). Obviously they are quite a power couple.
Family score: –. Alas, not in the Vows column write-up.
Balance score: 9.3. They were college roommates, and longtime friends before they became an item. So of course they score highly on balance. Adam probably definitely makes more than Steve. But Steve is more high-profile than Adam, as a published author and former TV correspondent (who used to appear regularly alongside Maria Bartiromo, aka “the Money Honey”; once we saw him while on a treadmill at a gym in Portland, Oregon).
Beauty score: 8.5.
Overall score: 9.10.
Additional comments: “Adam and Steve” — geddit?. Take that, all you homophobic protesters with your “Adam and Eve, not Adam and Steve” signs!
2. Sheila Kadagathur and Jake Phillips (link unavailable)

Résumé score: 9.6. Sheila graduated from U. Penn (magna) and University of Chicago Law School. She’s now at Baker Botts in D.C. John Ray Phillips III — aka “Jake Phillips” — graduated from Duke and Chicago Law (where he met Sheila). He clerked for Judge Luttig and Justice Scalia (October Term 2004), and he’s now at Kirkland & Ellis.
Family score: 9.0. Sheila’s father founded an energy and environmental consulting firm, of which her mother is the VP and general counsel. Jake’s mother founded a high school in Tennessee, where she is now the assistant principal, and his father is a lawyer.
Beauty score: 9.2. We’ve actually met Sheila and Jake — we once shared an airport shuttle van with them — and their Times photo doesn’t do them justice. They’re a very attractive couple.
Balance score: 8.6. Sheila is a high-powered lawyer in her own right. But lawyers who aren’t SCOTUS clerks marry SCOTUS clerks at their own peril — or at the peril of their balance score.
Overall score: 9.10.
Additional comments: The announcement notes that Sheila “is keeping her name.” Why oh why, dear Sheila? “Kadagathur” is quite a mouthful.
(Also, why is their announcement not online? Did they think they could evade the watchful eyes of LEWW with such a move? Silly rabbits! We get the Sunday Times delivered, at home, in all its ink-stained glory.)
3. Jessica Marshall and Brian Glatt
Résumé score: 8.9. Jessica is an associate at Weil Gotshal, a summa graduate of George Washington University for college, and a graduate of Yeshiva for law school. Brian is a plastic surgeon and a magna graduate of U. Penn, where he also received his medical degree. As we’ve said before, lawyer-doctor combos are great. And lawyer-plastic surgeon combos are even better.
Family score: 9.1. Her father is the founder and senior partner of Marshall, Conway & Wright, a New York law firm with over 20 attorneys. Her mother is a retired speech pathologist. His father is chair of the opthalmology department at Mountainside Hospital in Montclair, New Jersey. His mother is the administrator of his father’s practice.
Balance score: 8.7. Cross-professional comparisions can be challenging. He may have a slight edge over her in the school prestige department. But on the whole, they’re sound.
Beauty score: 9.5. Jessica is a stunner — we don’t know how tall she is, but based on her face, she could be a runway model. It will be YEARS before Brian will have to do any work on her. And Brian is also very good-looking, in a masculine, strong-jawed sort of way.
Overall score: 9.05.
Additional comments: A score this high is usually good enough to win; but as noted, this week was a tough one.
THIS WEEK’S WINNING COUPLE: Hey, guess what — IT’S A TIE! This is the first time this has happened here at Legal Eagle Wedding Watch. But this week we have two winners: a gay couple, Adam Berger and Stephen Frank, and a straight couple, Sheila Kadagathur and Jake Phillips. Congratulations!
To those of you who hate ambiguous endings, don’t worry: these two couples will face each other again, in the September 2006 contest for “Couple of the Month.” So YOU will get to pick which pair you like better. Exciting!
(To read past editions of Legal Eagle Wedding Watch, click here, and scroll down.)

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