Guido Calabresi, New York Times, Weddings, Williams & Connolly

Legal Eagle Wedding Watch 4.29: One Hand, One Hartford

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Last week, we exhorted candidates to step it up for the high wedding season, and this week’s couples really responded. In fact, they brought the fabulosity in such a big way that LEWW has spent some anguished nights picking the three most deserving entries for this column.
Consider this: Our three featured couples are all lawyer-lawyer matings in which the least prestigious JDs are the two from Harvard! In order to narrow our list, we had to eliminate a gorgeous Harvard-Columbia offering with Skadden overtones and a robust NYU-Stanford entry with a wonderful floral bouquet.
LEWW is just sick about passing over all these shiny credentials. Now we know what a dean of admissions at a top-10 law school feels like!
Here are the amazing couples who made the initial cut:

1. Sara Galvan and Luke Bronin

2. Emily Thacher-Renshaw and Christian Pistilli

3. Rebecca Charnas and Scott Grant

Also, back by popular demand: registry links!
More on this week’s couples, after the jump.

1. Sara Galvan and Luke Bronin
(Their W-S list is bought-out, but you can still get them something from their booze registry.)
The Case:
– Short of Olympic gold medals, this couple could not have more awe-inspiring credentials. They met the summer before they both left for Oxford as Rhodes Scholars. After falling in love in the city of dreaming spires, they descended upon New Haven for twin JDs from Yale.
– When Luke broke his kneecap in a bicycle accident their first year at Oxford, Sara wooed the invalid by bringing him “food and other necessities.” It’s not exactly Gaudy Night, but it’s sweet. Says Luke of his bride, “She’s tough, she’s feisty, she’s fun. I just love her.” And so do we!
The Case Against:
– Most of the Rhodes Scholars we knew in law school were busily jockying for position in each others’ Cabinets. Rhodies without SCOTUS clerkships were regarded as embarrassing flameouts. So we’re a little perplexed by these lovebirds’ lackluster post-Yale pursuits. Luke is now a lawyer at the Hartford, “the Connecticut insurance company.” Sara is a research professor of law at the University of Connecticut and doing something involving real estate in New Haven. What, is there no more prestigious stuff to apply for? Don’t go all Remembering Denny on us, kids.

2. Emily Thacher-Renshaw and Christian Pistilli
(Buy them a salad spinner.)
The Case:
– The groom was summa at Haverford; the bride was magna at Penn. They both received JDs from Harvard, where they met.
– He’s an associate at Covington and Burling. She’s clerking for Judge Ellen Segal Huvelle, a district court judge in DC; she also appears to have been an associate at Williams & Connolly at some point.
– Christian’s Covington bio indicates that he clerked for Judge Amalya L. Kearse of the Second Circuit. He also won the Sears Prize and the Ames Moot Court competition! LEWW isn’t sure what all those fancy words mean, but we think we smell a gunner!
The Case Against:
– They’re both attractive, but a little mismatched. Emily looks wholesome and corn-fed, while Christian is giving off more of a brooding philosopher/poet vibe. If Emily has brothers, they probably think Christian is a tool.
– The mismatch extends to their academic honors. As noted above, he was summa and she was magna in college. At HLS, he continued to rub it in, graduating magna while she was merely cum laude. We always cringe when we see this. It’s just not fair to the children — what if they take after their mother?

3. Rebecca Charnas and Scott Grant
(Buy them some ice tongs.)
The Case:
– Rebecca and Scott graduated from Yale and Swarthmore, respectively, and then met at Yale Law School.
– Rebecca is currently clerking for Second Circuit superstar Guido Calabresi, the former YLS dean, Nobel Prize deservee, and terrifying amalgamation of Pan and Narcissus.
– Guido recycles a speech to his 1L torts class every year in which he congratulates his students on making it to YLS and then encourages them to “get off the treadmill” of constant striving; he then hires as his clerks the ones who not only remain on the treadmill but also dial up the setting to “Extreme Kiss-Ass.” Way to see through the ruse, Rebecca!
The Case Against:
– Many Calabresi clerks end up doing a second clerkship in DC, and Rebecca is one of them. But instead of joining the Elect at One First Street, she’ll be clerking at 717 Madison Place, the Federal Circuit building, for some dude we’ve never heard of. Rebecca, thou hast brought everlasting shame to the chambers of the Dark Elf!
The Verdict:
LEWW hereby announces a rule: The only credential that can trump two Rhodes Scholarships is a SCOTUS clerkship, and even then the winner will be determined by a hotness tiebreaker. Congratulations, Team Galvan-Bronin — now get yourselves to a real city and take over the world!

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