Legal Eagle Wedding Watch 7.1.07: Lawyers, Literally
The NYT has served up a relatively weak batch of candidates this week. That's okay with us; we needed to be brought down to earth after the heights of last week's eminence-fest.
Still, a warning: There's not an Ivy League degree to be found in this column, so those of you who are nauseated by the couplings of mere Duke-UVA grads may want to avert your eyes and ponder what a cesspool the Times has become.
Here are the finalists:
1. Jill Isaacs and Kurt Perhach
Read more about these couples, after the jump.
1. Jill Isaacs and Kurt Perhach
(Buy them some pasta bowls.)
The Case:
- Kurt is admirably public-spirited; he's currently in the Army JAG Corps at Fort Bragg, and he served some time in Teach for America. And Jill, the devoted wife, is keeping the home fires burning in Raleigh while practicing at the Horsley Law Firm.
- Jill's father works in China for an exporter of lingerie. Let's hear it for cheap Asian panties! (And... here come the Google hits.) Jill's mother is executive director of Table to Table, which sounds like a very worthy nonprofit.
The Case Against:
- The couple met at Hofstra Law (read about it here). The bride was cum laude from the University of Maryland; the groom did his undergrad at William & Mary and has a master's from St. Peter's College. There's no way to sugar-coat this: These are not typical LEWW academic credentials. Hofstra is tier-3, Maryland is the armpit of the ACC, we've never heard of St. Peter's, and our impression of William & Mary is that it's crawling with biology majors and hoop-skirt fetishists. In short, while this couple is cute and patriotic, It's LEWW's duty to be cold-hearted and send them down to the minors until they can score a prestigious fellowship or get somebody off death row.
2. Jennifer DeLeonardo and Adam Frey
(Buy them a cooling rack.)
The Case:
- Jennifer and Adam met at admitted students' weekend at UVA Law (read the story on their website). The bride was cum laude at Middlebury College; the groom was magna at Duke.
- They've found employment at prestigious law firms. Jennifer is in Sullivan & Cromwell's DC office; Adam is at Patton Boggs.
The Case Against:
- "Jennifer Marie DeLeonardo" doesn't sound like a Jewish name, but they were married by a cantor. Has another good Jewish boy fallen to a shiksa?
- The Patton Boggs attorney photos do a disservice to this proud genre. The firm went well beyond headshots or even torso shots; they've got every subject perched on a stool with most of the body showing, looming ominously over the camera, with awkward hand contortions all over the place. Adding to the full-frontal freakiness, the lighting isn't great, and some of the people -- particularly female associates -- have bizarre, pained, facial expressions (help me!). If Patton Boggs is trying to intimidate the crap out of us with the sausage fingers, crotch-grabbing, and young women in bondage, it's totally working.
3. Liza Burnett and Stephen Fefferman
(Buy them a pizza wheel.)
The Case:
- The legal eagle in this pairing is the groom, who went to the University of Michigan and got his JD at Fordham. (The bride graduated from Union College and is in public relations.)
- Very cute meeting story in their write-up, which gets the semi-long treatment from the NYT. They met at a bar, where both were attending separate parties "for people they barely knew" (wonder if those "friends" got invites to the wedding). The night ended with Liza proposing and Andrew giving her an ersatz engagement ring crafted, MacGyver-like, from a dollar bill.
The Case Against:
- Stephen is an associate at Meister Seelig & Fein, which emphatically gets the indefinite article treatment ("a New York law firm") from the NYT.
- The partners at Meister Seelig have probably noticed that love has affected Stephen's communication skills. His first impression upon seeing Liza: "I was taken aback by her." Seriously? When we're taken aback by someone, we usually just nervously fiddle with our BlackBerry until help arrives; we've never thought of hastily fashioning an engagement ring from whatever's in our pocket and proposing. And it gets worse: Later that night, he says, he was "literally floating." Literally? Stephen, we suspect you were figuratively floating -- floating down Corny River toward Schmaltzy Falls. (Note: If you actually were slyly referring to your world-saving superpowers, we trust you'll be merciful.)
The Verdict:
- Away from the blinding glare of the NYT's usual "power schools," Virginia Law is looking bodaciously sparkly, and Sullivan & Cromwell and Patton Boggs are just icing on the wedding cake. Congratulations, Team DeLeonardo-Frey!
(32) Comments
2 is quality, 1 is horrible
LEWW I usually love reading. Please don't succumb to the snobbery that sometimes prevades the rest of this site.
This write-up is sheer genius.
FIRST!!!
Hilarious. Maybe a touch elitist, but hilarious. All is forgiven.
Laurie Lin went to Duke, so isn't it safe to assume that she is being tongue-in-cheek when she refers to "mere Duke-UVA grads?"
And isn't elitism the whole point of this blog?
That and porn stars.
Word. Maryland blows.
Fear the Turtle!!!!! Are you fearing it yet? No? Damn.
Slow day in Bham. There are some unfortunate bio pics on the Patton Boggs web site. And Aubrey is a good looking guy. You couldn't tell it from the photo.
Great LEWW.
Elitism? Fine. Ripping on William & Mary? Your impression is way off the mark.
#2, by far.
I have to choose couple #1 just because I went to school with them. Although I never spoke to the couple, I did see the groom many times in the hallways and always thought he looked very militant. Interesting to find out that he is, in fact, a JAG.
I went to William & Mary and have a foot fetish. So yeah, I'm with 3:59 -- WAY off the mark.
I grew up in Williamsburg. The W&M girls are uniformly un-hot. Most of them would be improved by putting on a hoop skirt.
Zzzz. More straight white folks getting married.
This week's edition was easy. The second couple easily outshines the other two.
Good stuff. Couple #1 is trash.
Have to agree with 4:41.
Gallion OUT!
Any cantor who would perform a wedding at 4:30 on a Saturday afternoon can't be all that serious...
Props to couple #1 for getting mentioned in LEWW.
Did #3 seriously propose upon meeting the first evening?
My god, that has to be a good amount of negative points. And yes, #2 is clearly the winner.
I don't get why people are unhappy with this weeks entries? They expect people without Ivy League (or even say, Stanford, Duke, and Chicago) degrees to get the same treatment as people with them?
Like beer pong and softball, UVA Law dominates again.
Mocking firm photo profiles is like shooting fish in a barrel. Shame on you.
stanford, duke and chicago? which one of these is not like the other? 5:20, are you a duke grad?
Am I alone in thinking "shiksa" is a slur?
This column makes a mockery of everything that the Leagle Eagle Wedding Watch stands for -- that is, honoring young men and women whom, through talent and hard work, reached an outstanding record of achievement at a young age that should serve as an inspiration for the rest of us in the profession.
Union College? Middlebury? Hofstra??? The Horsley Law Firm???????????? This is a travesty and completely unacceptable. How did these people got in the NYT in the first place. Laurie (a Duke/Yale Law grad herself) should know better.
I work at PB with several of the people who you linked to for their photo profiles. I just couldn't bring myself to forward the link to them, but I did share with several of my more fortunate co-workers.
There is actually a PB pose that you're required to assume during the photoshoot. Pretty embarassing.
6:42
No, you are not alone in thinking shiksa is a slur. but apparently it's an acceptable slur in Jewish circles. Steer the good boys away.
I was delighted to note that this Patton Boggs partner actually goes by the name "Penny Farthing":
http://www.pattonboggs.com/pfarthing/
Then again, talk about something requiring awkward bodily contortions.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Penny-farthing
Shiksas are usually reserved for the second, happier marriages without the climbing ostentatious weddings, registries and announcements in the NYT.
I wish I had seen that Groom Frey was a member of the Federalist Cult and proudly admits to it on his PB advertisement before voting. Please.
How many shots do you think these people have to sort through before deciding their photo fate embedded for all time in the cache from hell? Must be a lot. Yet I am always amazed at which one they pick.
I have decided an imposed posing stance is a critical law firm test. If you can handle your own body and make it look like someone a jury wouldn't laugh at and a client might hire, then you win. Not all those pictures look stupid. A number of those PBers looked like they owned the camera. If you're not comfortable in your own skin, then I don't want you representing me.
Let me just throw in a note that 7:02 is way out of line re: Middlebury. Just because you've never been to Vermont doesn't mean you should diss one of the finest schools this country has to offer.