Legal Eagle Wedding Watch 5.6: Ann Arbor Amour
Lawyers are taking over the NYT weddings section like mold on warm cheddar! Once again, we had a tough time picking three contestant couples from the horde of JDs this week. An unusually high number of law firm partners (and a GC) tied the knot (see here, here, and here for some that didn't make the cut), and partly as a consequence, some younger associate-level couples were left out in the cold. LEWW even had to suck it up and cut one of our law school classmates from the finals!
Here are the carefully selected contestants:
1. Soogy Lee and Nathan Taft
Continue reading about this week's couples, after the jump.
(And if you haven't already voted, don't forget about the April Couple of the Month race -- we'll close the poll soon.)
1. Soogy Lee and Nathan Taft
(Buy them a gravy boat.)
The Case:
- Their resumes are very solid: She went to Hopkins and got a JD at Georgetown; he has both an undergrad degree and an MBA from Yale.
- The groom is the great-great-grandson of
- Note to Geordie Zug, a groom whose write-up mentions that he is the great-great-grandson of a United States representative from Troy, New York: Wow, Geordie -- did you ever pick the wrong week to play the great-great-grandfather card! Nathan Taft is on his honeymoon somewhere, Mai Tai in hand, doubled-over with laughter at your piddling ancestor. (Soogy can join her new husband in the mockery, as she's the granddaughter of a former vice premier of South Vietnam.)
The Case Against:
- Soogy "always hated dating," and really, when you're senior counsel in the bankruptcy and corporate restructuring group at Simpson Thacher & Bartlett, who has the time? But the details of her first encounter with Nathan -- afterward, she stumbled out of a restaurant in a champagne-addled haze, mumbling "Does anyone remember if he was cute or not?" -- make us wonder if perhaps an eHarmony membership might have been money well spent, just to acquire some intro-level skills. Then again, she did end up snagging a presidential descendant, so who are we to judge?
2. Alyssa Qualls and John McCormick
(Buy them some place mats.)
The Case:
- Until last fall, the bride was an AUSA in Brooklyn; she's now a litigation partner at Kirkland & Ellis. But don't assume she's one of those humorless former-prosecutor partners who make you want to duck into a toilet stall and quietly drown yourself; after all, she got her JD from the coolest law school in America (she did her undergrad at Brown). And she's very pretty.
- John, a Fulbright scholar, graduated from Queens College and earned a doctorate from the University of Chicago; He's now a professor of political science at the University of Chicago. Between the professorship, his picture, and his selected publications (Weber, Habermas and Transformations of the European State, etc., etc.) we think you can go ahead and assume he's humorless. (Although he's decent-looking, in a hairy, Miguel Sandoval kind of way.)
The Case Against:
- The groom's mother is "a coat-check attendant at Alberto, a restaurant in Forest Hills, Queens." Our initial thought upon reading this was "What a charming vignette about social mobility in America!" But then doubt crept in: Did the fancy-schmancy professor submit that humble description of his mom's job as a subtle critique of the NYT's emphasis on pedigree? Is he quietly mocking the exalted status of grooms like Nathan Taft, the proud son of the son of the son of a former president? John, we cannot countenance the subversion of all that we hold dear! On behalf of the Gray Lady, LEWW raps you on your hairy knuckles for this impertinence.
3. Eve Brensike and Richard Primus
The Case:
- These two are frighteningly well-credentialed. Eve was magna at Brown and summa at Michigan Law (where sources tell us she racked up the highest GPA in the school's history). Few suitors would be worthy of such a goddess, but Richard is one such academic Adonis: He was summa at Harvard, a Rhodes Scholar (at Balliol -- another shout-out to Lord Peter!), and received a JD from Yale, where he undoubtedly would have been summa if Yalies understood Latin.
- Richard did time in the chambers of the Dark Elf, where he punched his ticket to a Ruth Bader Ginsburg clerkship. Eve, though not a member of the Elect, was no slouch herself in the clerkship department; she's a former bleeding Reinhardt.
- Rumor has it that these two were set up by their boss, the luscious Dean Evan Caminker! As if Michigan faculty meetings weren't already steamy enough, what with Caminker's mega-hunkitude -- now McDeany is playing Cupid? Kudos to the Michigan faculty and students for getting any work done amidst the torrid hormonal stew their school has become. UVA may be the nation's coolest law school, but we nominate Michigan for the hottest!
The Case Against:
- In a troubling breach of their egalitarian values, the groom makes more money than his bride. Despicable! Why don't you just bind her feet and chain her to a stove, Richard?
- We can't find a wedding registry for these two. What are they, Communists? (Never mind, we don't want to know.) Although Eve and Richard have apparently eschewed kitchen-related wedding booty, Google reveals that you can make a donation in the couple's honor to MassEquality, an organization working for marriage rights for gay and lesbian couples. (Isn't that a bit like joining Augusta National and asking your friends to make a commemorative donation to NOW? We're just sayin' -- we can think of more impressive displays of commitment to the cause.) You can also donate to the Hebrew Day School of Ann Arbor in honor of Richard's Jewish Day School education.
Update: We received an e-mail from a tipster, who passed along a juicy link to Richard and Eve's wedding homepage, with the following commentary:
in order to sate your brensike-primus hunger, i give you their wedding homepage. you can get a look at the registry (and designated charities); the cold, awkward proposal and accompanying picture; and most important, a professorial tutorial on jewish wedding customs (if only one could employ the socratic method in web-form). it's all pretty hilarious. oh, when nerdy law professors unite...
And apparently they did register for quite a bit of wedding booty! We apologize for calling them Communists. Buy them an ice cream scoop!
The Verdict:
We could have decided this matter on summary judgment. Congratulations, Professors Brensike and Primus!
(39) 
Congrats to Professor Primus - I was sore disappointed when I found out that he would be returning to Michigan after a year at NYU, but it looks like he had a good reason.
Is it just me or do neither Brensike nor Primus appear on the UM salary chart linked to above? Did they send a controversial school-wide email? Hahahahaha
"afterward, she stumbled out of a restaurant in a champagne-addled haze, mumbling "Does anyone remember if he was cute or not?"
Jesus - this kind of tidbit is in every damn NY Times wedding announcement! Another variation - he was enamored of her, she thought he was "dorky." Ugh.
In addition to incredible credentials, Professor Primus is also one of the best socratic teachers there is. He taught a spectacular con law class at NYU before disappointing his students by moving back to Michigan.
Also, check out the crazy way Primus decides who to call on, from the New York Times:
http://select.nytimes.com/search/restricted/article?res=F30C10FF3D5C0C708DDDAD0894DB404482
An excerpt:
Every day before his lecture "Introduction to Constitutional Law," Prof. Richard Primus conducts a ritual that Hollywood might call "Socratic method meets social engineering." In an office tucked off the law library stacks, he takes out two piles of index cards adorned with the face-book pictures of his 91 first-year students. Like a blackjack dealer in a casino, he shuffles the piles, which are split by sex, then deals out 10 cards from each, the first step in compiling the list of students to be called on during class.
"I've got three black students out of 20, which is plenty," Professor Primus said one recent morning, now the coach adjusting his lineup. Surveying the selected men, he sighed and sent the top three back to the pile: one had been grilled the day before, another already had four hash marks, indicating the number of times he had been picked, and the third belonged to Richard Hoeg, a white man known throughout campus for his conservative views. "Mr. Hoeg talks every day," Professor Primus explained. "Sometimes he has good things to say, but I don't need to call on him."
Once he had 20 viable cards, the young professor turned to the more delicate process of sequencing, starting with the women's pile. Given the persistent pattern of men speaking more often in classrooms, he tries to pick women two of the first three times he calls on students.
"I want to make sure the conversation in the first few minutes includes some women," he said. "I won't call on three men in a row. It's just too much." The first man in the deck sits too close to the first woman, so he shuffled again. "I want to move the conversation around the room," he said, swapping Kristin Cleary, who sits to the professor's right, for Umbreen Bhatti across the room. Then he picked a man who sits toward the back, then a woman down front. He stopped for a demographic check: two of the first four on the roster were minority women. He was set.
vote Nathan!!! he is one of the nicest guys I have ever met!
4:09, it is just you. scroll down; they're both highlighted. primus is $165K, brensike $140K.
MCM -- That's really weird. It looks like the salary page has changed since I looked at it earlier this week. (I re-linked to a cached version.)
4:09, it is just you. scroll down; they're both highlighted. primus is $165K, brensike $140K.
Primus is a loser. Does he care about ANYTHING other than race & gender? You wouldn't know it from his little interview.
1. Primus has been around for six years, Brensike just started. Thus the salary differential.
2. Primus rules.
I am pretty sure Prof. Christina Whitman had the record UMich Law GPA until Daniel Teney dethroned her a couple years ago.
On the other hand, Yale Kamisar ranks Brensike as one of his top-5 all-time best students.
Give it up for Brensike. She was the hardest gunner in our class and used to annoy the piss out of me daily, but this woman is damned good at what she does and seems to love it. Doing what she was born to do. The rest of us should be so lucky.
Not sure if ATL know this, but when I was at Michigan, Primus accidentally sent out a spreadsheet containing all the students in his Employment Discrimination class and their respective grades. For that alone I think he should not win.
I am pretty sure Prof. Christina Whitman had the record UMich Law GPA until Daniel Tenny dethroned her a couple years ago.
On the other hand, Yale Kamisar ranks Brensike as one of his top-5 all-time best students.
folks, carolyn franz graduated with a 4.18 from michigan, which is the modern record. whitman had the old record, but they changed the grading scale in 1994ish.
also, btw, franz DID NOT get tenure at u-chicago, so high GPA aint everything...
PRIMUS SUCKS
And Jerry Was a Racecar Driver
http://www.primusville.com/
folks, carolyn franz graduated with a 4.18 from michigan, which is the modern record. whitman had the old record, but they changed the grading scale in 1994ish.
also, btw, franz DID NOT get tenure at u-chicago, so high GPA aint everything...
Why are all the legal eagle wedding watch couples Lat finds so uniformly plain or fugly!? I mean, c'mon, there are plenty of attractive lawyers out there. Don't they ever get married? Lat, I love your website but you've really got no eye for cute couples.
carolyn franz graduated with a 4.18 from michigan, which is the modern record. whitman had the old record, but they changed the grading scale in 1994ish.
also, btw, franz DID NOT get tenure at u-chicago, so high GPA aint everything...
Get over Caminker, please. I took his Con Law class in 98 while he was visiting from UCLA and I was less than impressed.
And besides, he told us all his heart already belonged to Halle Berry.
What is it with you Michigan folk knowing (caring) what the highest GPA's are in school history?
Fascinating, Anonymous 5:10. Phil Soper (Michigan Contracts prof) did the same thing; I went to office hours and saw a spreadsheet of everybody's 1L contracts grade. The juicy part is, the only one to get a D+ made law review later that year...and happened to be African American.
hey 5:27 - we live in frickin ann arbor. other than going to Ricks to hit on drunk undergrad chicks, we sit around gossiping about the school.
michlaw is right, 5:27. Besides, Michigan is one of the last top-tens that still grades on a strict curve instead of inflating everybody's GPA into oblivion.
Primus, if you're reading this - I wouldn't mind a little of that grade inflation! Crap, something tells me you graded our exams pre-nuptials.
how could you cut a guy who said this: The bridegroom’s great-great-grandfather, John Augustus Griswold, was a United States representative from Troy, N.Y., from 1863 to 1869.
now that brings things to a whole NEW level!
Methinks the professors protest too much on the registry part of their website. It's all, we REALLY want charitable donations because we are so very charitable and are very good people, but if you are more shallow or closed-minded and you REALLY want to give us prezzy presents, OK, we don't really want them but FINE, here's our registry for stuff. Just list the charities and then the registries, dudes!
So true, T & A! It puts the present-giver in the bizarre position of feeling like a materialistic asshole for wanting to give the couple an All-Clad pan instead of donating to a charity of the couple's choice. Who knows - maybe I am a materialistic asshole?
http://www.richardandeve.wedquarters.com/Welcome.wq
http://www.richardandeve.wedquarters.com/Welcome.wq
registries on one of the pages
Wow. Another feature about white lawyers getting married to each other - with a token WGWAG thrown in for good measure.
This column SUCKS.
Dude, blame the NYT weddings section for the lack of diversity, not Laurie. Although Lat and Laurie might consider following Gawker's lead and looking at the Post's wedding section once in a while.
Also, not that I want to encourage WGWAG, but this is a case of AGWWG.
The problem with the salary site has been corrected. Search to your hearts content
It is very rare that a former paralegal can say this about a supervising attorney: Alyssa Qualls is an amazing person and a pleasure to work with. Congrats AQ!
One 'impressive display of commitment' to the cause that Eve & Richard made was that, while they had their Jewish ceremony in Michigan near their home, they deferred the civil ceremony to Massachusetts to show support for that state's marriage laws.
Information from 10:43: Oh, for Christ's sake. That is just tiresome.
As one who has personal knowledge of the anecdotes that colored…dare I say, “defined”…Professor Primus’s youth, I must urge you all to vote for the Primus-Brensike union. Professor Primus’s devotion to causes, academic and urbane, goes back decades.
Yes, this is the man who back in high school, regularly spent weeks on end playing political bookshelf games with his father. And when his father got bored and took too long to complete his next turn, Professor Primus refused to shave in protest until his father would continue the game. I have vivid memories of the scruffy-looking young man sitting next to me in chemistry class.
Yes, this is the man who, as a 10-year old in 1979, explained to me the international politics behind the Iran hostage crisis, identified the location and strength of all the U.S. forces throughout the region, and discussed (with statistics I’m sure) the possibility that the death of single hostage could lead to a 51st state.
Yes, this is the man who, as a 7-year old, not only built sand castles at day-camp, but project managed complex waterways that included reservoirs, spillways, riverlets, and deep wells…constructed only with drinking straws, buckets, and a dream.
Yes, this is the man who throughout my childhood taught me everything I ever wanted to know about the Civil War…and much I didn’t.
And yet, I’ve never before seen the devotion that he now shows his new wife. Such a couple deserves your vote.
I encountered Eve Brensike when she was the director of a pre-law summer program at Stanford. She used to be a dance teacher. During the program, she once wrote coreographed a corny rap song (think Paula Franzez but not nearly as entertaining). She seemed to suffer from ADHD. I'm sure she employs similar gimicks in her U of M classes. Incidentally, Michian seemed in desperate need of people to teach 1l crim. My 1l crim prof's sole qualification for the stint was receiving an A in the class when he took it 1l year. Although she has nothing on Paula,
Eve is attractive for a law professor (the picture from the NYT doesn't do her justice),. If I were writing the LEWW column, I would perhaps have to come out with a balance score in the 8s. His receding hairline, girth and poor fashion sense detract from his impressive scholarly achievements.
On an unrelated note, I recall a UTR comment which stated that Daniel Teney had the highest GPA in U of M history. I sat in the shadow of his brilliance 1l year and witnessed two male professors swoon over him--Philip Soper, of the 5:34 comment regarding the exam grades spreadsheet, and William Warner Van Alystne, then visiting from Duke, now at William & Mary and probabl criminally insane. I would have much preferred to have Primus for conlaw.
The Primus-Brensike wedding registries were with Bed Bath & Beyond and Amazon.com--pretty lousy. The money would doubtlessly have been better spent on a charitable donation.
I encountered Eve Brensike when she was the director of a pre-law summer program at Stanford. She used to be a dance teacher. During the program, she once wrote and coreographed a corny rap song (think Paula Franzez but not nearly as entertaining). She seemed to suffer from ADHD. I'm sure she employs similar gimicks in her U of M classes. Incidentally, Michian seemed in desperate need of people to teach 1l crim. My 1l crim prof's sole qualification for the stint was receiving an A in the class when he took it 1l year. Although she has nothing on Paula,
Eve is attractive for a law professor (the picture from the NYT doesn't do her justice),. If I were writing the LEWW column, I would perhaps have to come out with a balance score in the 8s. His receding hairline, girth and poor fashion sense detract from his impressive scholarly achievements.
On an unrelated note, I recall a UTR comment which stated that Daniel Teney had the highest GPA in U of M history. I sat in the shadow of his brilliance 1l year and witnessed two male professors swoon over him--Philip Soper, of the 5:34 comment regarding the exam grades spreadsheet, and William Warner Van Alystne, then visiting from Duke, now at William & Mary and probabl criminally insane. I would have much preferred to have Primus for conlaw.
The Primus-Brensike wedding registries were with Bed Bath & Beyond and Amazon.com--pretty lousy. The money would doubtlessly have been better spent on a charitable donation.