Contests, Reader Polls, Weddings

Legal Eagle Wedding Watch: Couple of the Month for June

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Oh, they say when you marry in June,
You’re a bride all your life.
And the bridegroom who marries in June
Gets a sweetheart for a wife.
– “Seven Brides for Seven Brothers”
Which of our four June brides and bridegrooms will soar into married life as Couple of the Month? As always, we’ve picked the weekly winners — now it’s ATL readers’ turn to award the big prize.
A recap of our nominated couples appears after the jump; here’s the poll if you’re ready to vote:

1. Serena Hoy and James Reilly
(Buy them a popover pan.)
The Case:
– Serena and James are heavy hitters on Capitol Hill. She’s legal counsel to Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid of Nevada, and he’s chief of staff to Senator Tom Carper of Delaware.
– These Article I superstars were united in marriage by an impressive Article III officiant: Judge Merrick B. Garland of the DC Circuit.
– Both the bride and the groom started off at state schools — Serena went to the University of Arizona, and James to the University of Delaware. And that was enough public education for them! Serena jetted away to Oxford on a Rhodes Scholarship and later picked up a law degree from Yale; James went to Duke for a master’s in environmental management.
The Case Against:
– It’s our job to criticize people, but our heart’s not in it with these two. They seem classy but not at all pretentious, and they look radiantly in love. Our only complaint is a minor one: They have an “Our Story” section on their wedding website, but when you click on it, hoping for some juicy/sappy/sordid details, you just see polite suggestions that their guests donate to the Refugee Reunification Project and the Chesapeake Bay Foundation. Damn them for being so refined!

2. Avery Gardiner and Edwin U
(Buy them a $275 meat fork.)
The Case:
– Avery and Edwin met at Harvard, where they received undergraduate degrees, both magna. Like a pair of swans gliding across a prestigious lake in perfect unison, they then swept through Harvard Law, both emerging cum laude. We need not detail all the many, many things about this that leave us trembling and breathless.
– Edwin is a legal superstar and a good provider; he’s just 33 and already a partner at Kirkland.
– This couple’s officiant was Angus S. King Jr., the former governor of Maine!
– Edwin’s one-letter last name is intriguingly avant-garde without being too edgy. And what a timesaver! But we can’t fault Avery’s decision to hang on to her solid WASP surname; “Avery U” sounds like a bad college — oh wait, it actually is.
The Case Against:
– Avery is a trial attorney in the antitrust division of the Department of Justice. Hang on — we’ve been dusting off our Ayn Rand — aren’t we all supposed to be, like, getting the hell out of the way of our über-rational monopolist overlords, lest they go on strike and spend all their time violently mating with each other? Avery, they’re gonna stop the motor of the world if you keep pestering them!
– Their wedding website specifies that the event is black tie, and the word “optional” is nowhere in sight. LEWW adores a man in a good tux as much as the next girl, but the sad fact is that 90 percent of mandatory black tie weddings these days are grasping attempts by the bourgeoisie to appear upper-crust. Unless you and all your friends are so fabulous that you slither in and out of tuxes on a regular basis, a bunch of your guests are going to show up with cheap After Hours rentals and one more reason to hate you. As if the $275 meat fork weren’t enough.
3. 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.
4. Jean Galbraith and Jeremy Tobacman
Donate to a charity in their honor.
The Case:
– Obligatory Article III officiant: Judge David Tatel of the DC Circuit.
– Jean and Jeremy both graduated from Harvard. Jeremy hung around in Cambridge for a PhD in economics; Jean has a JD from Berkeley.
– Jean is a member of the Elect! After clerking for Judge Tatel, she was a Stevens clerk in OT ’05.
– Jeremy’s economics friends at Oxford (where he’s a postdoctoral fellow) will doubtless be impressed that he’s married into economics royalty. Jean is the granddaughter of John Kenneth Galbraith, the famous economist — a man William F. Buckley called “the most influential U.S. intellectual of the 20th century.” Of course, Galbraith probably paid him to say that; he famously believed that “Humility is not always compatible with truth.” (There’s a nugget of wisdom lawyers can get behind!) Jean’s father also lacks any excuse to be humble; he’s a partner at Williams & Connolly.
The Case Against:
– Brain drain! Instead of using her SCOTUS experience for the betterment of America’s economy like a good Scalia clerk would, Jean has decamped to the Hague to help prosecute Yugoslavian war criminals. Those Stevens clerks and their wacky fascination with international law!

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