Legal Eagle Wedding Watch 06.17: Picture This
LEWW is so devoted to you, dear readers, that we haul out our scanner every week so we can show you pictures that the Times doesn't post in its online edition. But this week the NYT was showing no photographic love for the lawyers. All three of our featured couples are picture-less!
We hate it too, but to borrow a way overused line from recent TV criticism, "Whaddya gonna do?" Just try to picture them in your minds or something. Here are our finalists:
1. Eva Temkin and David Lehn Jr.
More about these couples, after the jump.
1. Eva Temkin and David Lehn Jr.
(Buy them a muffin pan.)
The Case:
- David and Eva met as law students at NYU. He graduated magna from law school; they were both cum laude as undergrads -- she at Michigan and he at Harvard.
- David is an associate at Cooper & Kirk, the prestigious DC boutique with close ties to the Bush administration. Later this summer he'll begin a clerkship for Judge Douglas Ginsburg of the DC Circuit.
- Eva's an associate at Cravath, Swaine & Moore, which we understand is a decent little firm.
The Case Against:
- Unless Cravath opens a DC office, it looks like another couple's going to be living apart for a while. Given their workloads, we can only hope David and Eva notice each other's absence.
2. Sophia Lynn and David Frederick
(Buy them a dutch oven.)
The Case:
- The bride, who was once in the Foreign Service, is the project manager for a National Trust historic site in DC; it's also where the couple got married (nice perk). She graduated from the University of Texas and has a master's from Johns Hopkins. Sophia sounds worthy of her lovely name -- cultured and creative, but not flaky.
- The groom graduated summa from the University of Pittsburgh [sounds promising -- keep talking], after which he went to Oxford for a degree in comparative politics [Oxford? Our ears perk up] as a Rhodes Scholar [oh, yesssss]. Then he earned a JD, with honors, from UT [solid, but we sense there's more] and clerked for Supreme Court Associate Justice Byron White [stop -- we're dizzy!].
- Needless to say, this groom is one of the most impressive we've seen. But wait; there are more delights: David is a partner at Kellogg Huber, the intensely brainy DC law firm where even the mailroom guys are former SCOTUS clerks! And when it comes to appellate work, he literally wrote the book: "Supreme Court and Appellate Advocacy" (for a treatise, a steal at $58.90).
The Case Against:
- We got nothin'. This couple is older than is typical for LEWW winners, but we're not age-ists here. And anyway, they're both 46, so it's totally dignified and proper.
3. Amanda McCormick and Matthew Bacal
(Buy them some felt dinnerware protectors.)
The Case:
- Matthew is an associate at Davis Polk. He was magna at Princeton and got his JD from Columbia.
- This high-powered bride can match her husband, Princeton-for-Princeton and Columbia-for-Columbia (she has a MBA from the latter). And screw that lawyer stuff; she's got a way cooler job -- director of marketing for Michael Kors, the fashion house. Maybe Amanda can tell us why the rubber soles on these shoes wore off after, like, three outings.
The Case Against:
- Matthew's dad helped produce the children's television show "Transformers" in the 1980s. Women, blame him in advance for the two hours you'll spend in the theater this July when your SO "transforms" into Dweeby McNerdo. And on a related note, if you've got three hours to spare, don't miss this Wikipedia entry on Optimus Prime, which is longer than the one for George Washington.
- Amanda's middle name, Attilia, is one letter away from that of a fearsome, barbaric warrior "remembered as the epitome of cruelty and rapacity." If the fashion world is anything like it's portrayed in The Devil Wears Prada (and of course it must be), it's possible that this connection is frequently discussed by Amanda's underlings at Michael Kors.
The Verdict:
Not a close one this week. Nobody can stop our Rhodes-Scholar-SCOTUS-clerk-treatise-writer and his lovely Sophia. Congratulations, Team Lynn-Frederick!
(27) Comments
First!!!
Atlanta to 35k!!!
Couple two won?!?!
They don't have a single ivy league degree between the two of them. Granted the husband makes up for this with the Rhodes and SCOTUS clerkship, but the wife contributes nothing.
One successful person should not make a legal eagle couple winner.
The third couple is far more well rounded.
thank god laurie is in the house!!! why doesn't lat always have you pinch hit instead of merckie?
Merck to $190k!!!!
5:40, what are you smoking?
By your logic, two JDs from Cornell would beat one Rhodes Scholar SCOTUS clerk from Stanford.
LEWW seems to favor the Ivies (appropriately imo), but I don't think she likes them THAT much.
The Transformers bashing was uncalled for.
"By your logic, two JDs from Cornell would beat one Rhodes Scholar SCOTUS clerk from Stanford."
No. I said that his Rhodes and SCOTUS clerkship make up for the lack of ivy degrees, but the wife has nothing. Even a Rhodes/SCOTUS combo with the wife having nothing is not that impressive if we're looking at the couple.
Distribution should matter. One person having all the elite credentials should not make a true legal eagle couple.
The third couple has a good distribution of elite credentials. It would be interesting to know how Ms. Lin's criteria for awarding the legal eagle prizes; if I were her, I would want to make sure each person in a couple has at least one elite credential.
Also for case against the 2nd couple: "The bridegroom’s previous marriage ended in divorce."
I can't believe she isn't taking into account that this is a second marriage.
More than meets the eye.
WTF? A Supreme Court clerkship trumps all! Couple No. 1 is two associates and Couple No 3 is one. Neither beats a former Supreme Court clerk, Rhodes scholar and current partner.
"A Supreme Court clerkship trumps all!"
That would mean any SCOTUS clerk getting married would automatically win that week unless another SCOTUS clerk happened to be marrying that same week. That would mean a SCOTUS clerk from Emory marrying a junior high school dropout would beat two Harvard summa cum laude undergrads who then attended HLS, with one graduating with the Faye diploma and the other a two year Sears prize winner (who both also have prominent CoA clerkships). That doesn't seem right to me.
You people are dorkier than the grammar Nazis. This coming from the guy in the office at 10:15 on a Friday.
FUCK!!!!!!!!!
YOU!!!!!!!!!!!
MERCK!!!!!!!
i don't think marriages between people older than 35 should qualify for LEWW.
I want me one of them babies.
David Frederick isn't just any Rhodes Scholar who later clerked on the Supreme Court. There are plenty of those around. But David Frederick is the only person with those credentials who is also a veteran of the Solicitor General's Office AND also argued six cases (as a private practitioner) in the last two Supreme Court terms. His clerkship for Judge Sneed, his book on Ninth Circuit history, and his selection to argue United States v. Microsoft on behalf of the government in the D.C. Circuit are credentials that don't even make the cut.
All of that said, if LEWW isn't going to discriminate against older lawyers or lawyers getting married for the second time, the winner for this week should not have been any of the listed couples. It should have been Chief Judge Douglas H. Ginsburg and Washington writer Deecy Gray (sister-in-law of Ambassador Boyden Gray). True, they only announced their engagement this week; they didn't tie the knot. http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/06/19/AR2007061902606.html. Still, the couple's combined firepower and connections put even the Frederick/Lynn combo to shame. And being (like David Lehn) an incoming law clerk for Chief Judge Ginsburg can’t exactly compete in the prestige department with BEING Chief Judge Ginsburg, can it?
8:10pm, don't you know that love and marriage is waaaaay better the second time around?
You usually don't embarrass yourself with Gimme Registries for over paid associates nor do you think anyone who is anyone would still be talking about where you went to school. And we won't even get into the great sex.
White Girls With Asian Guys
you people are fucking dorks, is a YLS cum laude degree better than HLS with CoA clerkship??? Who the fuck cares. Go fuck some white girls instead
Agreed 3:05pm.
These people don't understand that some things are better after the first time. If you think the second marriage is good, wait until the sixth where it's pure heaven. Lin should be adding points for each additional marriage. The one with most marriages wins!
"is a YLS cum laude degree better than HLS with CoA clerkship?"
No, it is not.
I agree with the commenters who said that age and second marriage should be taken into account. In the case of David Frederick, I don't think that any of his post-clerkship credentials should give him an advantage because they are just the kind of credentials that would be expected for a 46-year-old Rhodes Scholar/SCOTUS clerk. If he had actually been appointed as a COA judge, then that would be a different matter.
2:56 is clearly Judge Ginsburg.
It is CHIEF Judge Ginsburg you moron.
Hi Ginsburg!
matt is really H-O-T and a really nice guy. he definitely wins.
Bacal should win for the mere fact that his father worked on GI Joe and the Transformers. Even if Bacal was drooling at the mouth as a kid and tripping over his every step, what his father did should edge his coolness up significantly.
"is a YLS cum laude degree better than HLS with CoA clerkship?"
No to this question, because YLS does not award cum laude degrees.
But yes, any YLS degree is better than any HLS degree.