New York Times, Weddings

Legal Eagle Wedding Watch 7.29.07: Un-Electable

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This week LEWW comes down from our recent SCOTUS-fueled three-week prestige bender and faces a column without a coupling of the Elect. It’s kind of like chasing a bottle of Château d’Yquem with a MoonPie, but what can we do? We work with what the NYT gives us.
Here are this week’s final three:

1. Nataliya Shkriada and Steven Kessler
2. Briana Goldfein and Matthew Holden
3. Andrea Humphrey and Jonathan Schmidt

Read all about this week’s couples, after the jump. And don’t miss next week’s much-anticipated July Couple of the Month Poll and SCOTUS Clerk Brawl!

1. Nataliya Shkriada and Steven Kessler
The Case:
– Steven, who has undergraduate and law degrees from George Washington University, is an assistant district attorney in Brooklyn. He spent the last four years as a legal adviser to the U.S. Justice Department in Sarajevo. That’s where he met Nataliya, who is from Ukraine (she was working for the Special Department of War Crimes).
– Their Article III officiant: Judge David O. Carter of the Central District of California, nicknamed “King David,” who “keeps a clock in his Santa Ana chambers that plays a tinny rendition of the Marine Corps Hymn a few minutes after the hour.”
The Case Against:
– Major age discrepancy. The bride is 31; the groom is a youthful-looking 51. But it was Nataliya–not Steven–who was previously married. After all the Bosnian people have been through, apparently the United States Department of Justice is sending in hunky “legal advisers” to seduce their women.
– This couple exposes a flaw in the LEWW metric: We aren’t equipped to evaluate the prestige of foreign educational institutions like Kiev State University and Central European University, both of which Nataliya attended. (We were similarly stumped by the bride the other week who attended the Fashion Institute of Technology.) If US News doesn’t rank them, do they truly exist? A real philosophical minefield here.

2. Briana Goldfein and Matthew Holden
(Buy them a brownie pan.)
The Case:
– The stunning bride went to Tufts and has a dual master’s from Bank Street College. She’s now a second-grade teacher in New York. The groom graduated with distinction (whatever that means — speak Latin, please!) from Emory and went to law school at the University of Miami. Now he’s an associate at Skadden.
– Briana and Matthew have a cute–if somewhat confusing–story involving JDate.com (“the undisputed leader in Jewish dating“), cancelled memberships, instant messages, and falling asleep with the computer on. Delve in if you dare. We also note that this is surely the most attractive couple in the history of online dating. JDate, get this picture on your site, stat!
The Case Against:
– Imagine that you’re shoveling coal in a sweltering dungeon with a bunch of other drudges, and the schmuck next to you announces that he’s moving to an upgraded dungeon: “I just married the slave-master’s daughter, suckas!” That’s how the associates on Matthew’s hall at Skadden feel this week: Briana’s dad is the head of Skadden’s antitrust group.

3. Andrea Humphrey and Jonathan Schmidt
(Buy them a potholder.)
The Case:
– Excellent credentials! Andrea was cum laude at Georgetown and got a master’s in public health at Yale; now she’s pursuing a doctorate in international health and development at Tulane. Jonathan was magna at Yale, got a master’s in public affairs at Princeton, and went back to Yale for a law degree. He was also a Fulbright scholar in Lima, Peru.
– Jonathan is an associate at Ballard Spahr Andrews & Ingersoll in Philadelphia. (Bash/celebrate the Philly legal market here.)
The Case Against:
– Andrea is a granddaughter of “the Happy Warrior,” Hubert Horatio Humphrey, who lost the 1968 presidential election to Richard Nixon by 0.7% of the vote. This is a solid ancestral credential, but it is overshadowed by Wendy Roosevelt, the bride in the writeup immediately below Andrea and Jonathan’s. (Wendy’s great-grandpa won four presidential elections, created Social Security, juggled several mistresses, and defeated Hitler, all from a wheelchair.)
The Verdict:
Team Shkriada-Kessler has two lawyers, and LEWW understands why that makes some of you all fluttery inside. But we can’t see past the father-and-son-in-law Skadditude of Team Goldfein-Holden. Congratulations, guys! (And you too, Briana!)

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