Legal Eagle Wedding Watch 9.2.07 and 9.9.07: Weiner Kings
That's right -- this is a combined edition of LEWW. Weep with joy, wedding-watchers!
Before we serve up this double shot, a request for input. In response to prompting from readers, when we've chosen the week's top three couples lately, we've been giving a big edge to lawyer-lawyer couples. The result is that we've often found ourselves writing about double-JD weddings even when there are other couples with more impressive credentials (but only one JD).
To be honest, we're not sure this is the right approach. It just feels wrong to pass over a dripping-with-prestige couple like this simply because a couple of unremarkable associates are getting hitched. Particularly during the height of the wedding season, there are often at least three lawyer-lawyer couples, so under our current system you're basically out of contention if you marry outside the profession.
We're considering lifting the heavy thumb we've put on the scales in favor of dual-lawyer couples, but before we do anything rash, we need to know what our readers think. What's more interesting to you, ATL fans: lawyers marrying lawyers, or prestigious lawyers marrying other prestigious (and often more interesting) people? Make your opinion known, either in the comments or by e-mail.
Here are this week's featured couples:1.) Elaine Ewing and Christopher Viapiano
2.) Carl Roller and Daniel Weiner
3.) Deborah Lipman, Matthew Fox
4.) Katherine Downs, Peter Oppenheim
Read on for more about these three brides and five bridegrooms.
1.) Elaine Ewing and Christopher Viapiano
(Buy them a great white cereal bowl.)
The Case:
- The bride is Amherst/Harvard; the groom was summa at Hamilton College and got his JD with distinction from Stanford.
- Both the bride and the groom are associates at über-prestigious New York law firms. At only 23 (!), Elaine is younger than most of the paralegals at Cleary Gottlieb, and Chris is an associate at Sullivan & Cromwell.
The Case Against:
- It's very common for the mother of the bride to seize control of the wedding, but Elaine's mom outdid herself -- she actually performed the couple's ceremony! (She's a Baptist minister, so we'll assume she didn't also DJ the reception.)
2.) Carl Roller and Daniel Weiner
(Buy them a vacuum pump.)
The Case:
- We think it adds a nice touch when same-sex weddings are actual weddings, like this one, which took place in Massachusetts.
- Carl went to Millersville University (improbably located in Millersville, PA, the NYT informs us) and got a law degree from Northeastern. Daniel was magna at Brown and got a JD cum laude from Harvard.
- Until last month, Carl was at Sugarman, Rogers, Barshak & Cohen, and Daniel was at Ropes & Gray. Now the newlyweds are moving to Washington, where Daniel will be at the DC office of Jenner & Block.
The Case Against:
- "Team Roller-Weiner" is perhaps overly evocative of . . . weiners, particularly for a couple with two.
3.) Deborah Lipman, Matthew Fox
(Buy them a butter dish.)
The Case:
- This couple met as law students at Stanford (they graduated in May). How delightful to have a bit of a west coast focus this week, with three Stanford grads! (Only two in this union, of course -- we're at least a decade away from polygamous marriages in the NYT.) For undergrad, Deborah was magna at Duke and Matthew was magna at Columbia.
- They won't be home much, but they'll still be seeing a lot of each other, because they'll both be associates at Cravath!
The Case Against:
- "Cravath, Swaine & Moore, a New York law firm"?!? C'mon, wedding section editors -- how would you feel if we called the NYT "a New York newspaper"? Not so great, huh? Please ensure that Cravath gets the definite article treatment from now on.
4.) Katherine Downs, Peter Oppenheim
(Buy them a $475 soup tureen.)
The Case:
- They both have law degrees (from American University), although neither appears to be doing hard-core lawyering. Katherine is a legislative aide to Idaho Senator Mike Crapo, and Peter works at the Carmen Group, a lobbying firm. We wonder what he "lobbies" his Capitol Hill wife for at home.
- Their china is certainly expensive, but we're putting it in the plus column because unlike some others we've seen, we think the pattern is beautiful (of course, we're not the ones being hit up for a $70 dessert plate).
The Case Against:
- Their dual JDs from AU, plus their undergrad colleges (Hamilton for her, Colby for him) add up to a total educational prestige score that's undeniably lower than the competition's this week.
The Verdict:
First, there's a correction that's more interesting than all these couples: check out this notice correcting a wedding announcement that ran on October 24, 1988. Did Amy and David fail to notice the mistake when their wedding announcement originally ran 19 years ago?
Turning to the big decision of the week, it's a close call between Team Ewing-Viapiano and Team Lipman-Fox, but in the end the dual-Stanford-dual-Cravath combination gets the nod. Congratulations, Team Lipman-Fox!
(56) Comments
no. one. cares.
Stupidest fucking feature on the whole internets. Please kill this, Lat.
I believe marriage is between one man and one woman.
Also, I am not buying two gay guys a "Rabbit Vacuum Pump."
LEWW is great. Laurie, don't let the haters get you down.
If you don't like this feature, don't read it. The same thing goes for ATL overall.
Why are lawyers so unattractive? I mean, even the gay guys in this piece are fug.
LEWW is my favorite ATL feature, but this week was a bit weak. As for the thumb on the scale, prestige should be more important than lawyer-lawyer.
I strongly agree with 3:30. LEWW rocks! Keep it up Laurie.
Um, did anyone else notice ... a 23 y.o. law school grad?!
Yo yo yo - love this feature!! man, there are some REALLY SMART ppl out there...thank god im one of them:)
Poor Carl. Among other things, he's apparently unemployable with that TTT law degree.
Excluding the Weiner duo on that basis, I vote for Lippman and Fox, who don't seem ugly.
LEWW rocks.
If you don't like it, don't click on it.
I love LEWW. Please take the 2 JD thumb off the scale. I would much rather read about one JD couples that are interesting/prestigious than comparatively boring 2 JD couples.
The two gay guys are HOT. I'm getting turned on just imagining them doing the nasty...
Anyone else notice how they all seem to come from money/prestige?!? So tired of seeing people's pics (in the mass media, or in Lat's case, the lawyer's tabloid media) just because they're privileged. Don't we all have better things to do?!?
I agree with anon. I mean, if anything, I think the couples featured should be people who didn't come from family money yet still accomplished as much as those who did. Seeing "x" who has a dad that is the MD and y bank and a mom who is a partner at z firm doesn't really impress me with their ivy degrees.
If there is a two-lawyer, highly prestigious couple, they should certainly win over a one-lawyer, highly prestigious couple. I think your question, though, was a threshold one: in order to make the top three the one-lawyer couple must be extra prestigious to beat out the two-lawyer couple -- SCOTUS-level or near equivalent.
Allow me to chime in: this is the worst and stupidest feature on ATL. Please end it.
BEST feature ever! forget the nay-sayers Latty boy...
Baptist? Gross.
What the heck do you have against Baptists, pops?
Re: the correction--I would wager that she applied for a job and the mismatch b/t resume and search result showed up.
Lat, why not do this the civilized, Iraqi way? Post a POLL. See how many of your readers really want this ridiculous, useless and stupid feature to keep appearing. Make sure you post the poll in a normal post, not one of these travesties, as most dare not tread hither.
while the legal profession will always involve discussions and evaluations based on prestige, it's somewhat unsettling to evaluate marriages based on this...
When are the gays ever going to win LEWW?!? Weiner Rolls should have won, damn it. Besides, Cravath associates are a dime a dozen. Power gay couples? Not so much.
if any of you babies crying about prestige actually read the articles instead of jumping up and down about your preconceived notions, you would see that the first couple does not come from "bluebood" -- the guy's mom is a nurse and his dad manages from a restaurant. And look - he has top-notch legal credentials! I think all the bellyaching is just poor performing people making excuses for their low, and deserved, station in the legal world.
i love this section.
Also, i knew Elaine from the debate circuit, and she was totally nice and normal in a way that made her not normal for the abnormal debate circuit. she also obliterated a favored team from Princeton at I think National Quarterfinals on what should have been a losing case that she ran about like the draft or something. Congrats, Elaine.
I vote for Dr. Ellis and Ms. Clarke--they trump all the rest of these folks, in my opinion. And it is absolutely better and more interesting to hear about lawyers marrying non-lawyers--what's so damn exciting about two attorneys hooking up? That's for the copy room, not the NYT.
Team 1 is the only one that has the correct NYT approved eyebrow alignment. 'Nuff said.
Didn't a lesbian couple win recently?
People really should read the blog a bit more carefully before they jump all over Lat and Lin.
Wow, there's a "debate circuit?" That must be akin in coolness to touring as a rock star. Bet they get laid a lot.
5:27, it's 5:14 - sarcasm is the protest of the weak -forrester. and yeah, it was super dorky, but whatever, three of the five guys i ran the circuit my senior year with were supreme court clerks (two for alito, one for ginsburg). which, actually, kinda reinforces our lameness, but whatevs.
5:27:
That's right. And you don't even want to know what happened that one time at debate camp.
The gay guy in blue is so handsome.
And I thought Crapo was senator from Idaho, not Ohio, but maybe I'm just confused as a consequence of having looked at the handsome gay guy in blue.
Lawyers marrying other prestigious and interesting people should trump a boring lawyer-lawyer couple. Most definitely.
Maybe it would be fun if next week you did some couples that didn't go to Tier 1 schools. Also, I suspect that the Tier 2 couples are much more attractive and people wouldn't complain so much about this segment. I bet TTT school couples are way hot.
Yes, Crapo is from Idaho, not Ohio.
5:01, i actually have fine legal credentials... summar cum laude at a top 15 law school and undergrad of the same caliber. i work at s&s. so i worked hard, and am enjoying the fruit of my success.
why don't we have legal eagle parent watch, and judge the prestige of our parents' backgrounds....
oh yeah you can dog on my typo "summar"
should have been "summa"
This feature's biggest offense is that it's boring. It thinks it's some cheeky take on the wedding announcements when it is actually engaging in the exact same prestige worship
Laurie, you are doing an awesome job with LEWW; ATL woudn't be the same without it. I don't agree with your decision to feature homosexuals but since you are the one doing the column it only makes sense that you rely on your own view of what marriage is in deciding who is feature. This is a nice way for us to look up to people who (for the most part) have really impressive records of achievement and cool backgrounds, keep it up and ignore the haters (they are probably all the same person anyway)!
6:25, "fine legal credentials," LOL. Shearman & Sterling is NOT impressive and top 15 law school and undergrad is laughable compared to many of the young achievers who are featured in LEWW. While your envy at the superior backgrounds of the 4 Harvard couples who occasionally appear here is understandable given that you could never marry someone with these credentials, you should use this as an opportunity to be impressed at successful people instead of trying to put down people who are better than you.
8:04 (probably the same guy as 6:25): this is not about a "cheeky take" this is about recognizing people who are on balance inspiring for their prestigious backgrounds. How hard is this to understand.
Hey 6:21, that is a fine idea and all, but I don't know if there are many Tier 2 and TTT grads who put their weddings announcements in the Times, which we all know is the only publication that matters.
Uh, 10:25, it's not Laurie's take, it's the New York Times in the decision to feature "homosexuals" just like heterosexual couples in the wedding announcements. And the New York Times does it because that's what the law allows, in that MA allows marriage and many states now allow civil unions and California has the bill before Arnold now.
It make sense: this is about raw choking prestige. If you can get a Momron husband and his two wifes to all graduate from Harvard and they can get in the New York Times, I say they should be put in here and mocked/complimented like everyone else. Moral judgments (homosexuality, tacky China patterns, eyebrow height) that are not relevant/germane to the judgment being made (raw choking prestige) don't and shouldn't affect the decision to include/exclude them, just the decision to compliment mock them.
Grow up.
But in so far as Laurie and all these newspapers and states do so, normatively, I say good.
If you think I'm the Senator from Idaho with a wide stance, you should talk to Crapo!
Please kill this fucking stupid non-feature. People must be incredibly bored or recently married to give a shit about this.
Truthfully, Laurie, the feature diminishes from ATL in every possible way: it bears only a nominal relation to the "law" (I mean, come on), it is painfully unfunny, lacks wit, and is as contrived as Larry Craig's "wide stance" defense.
Also, for what it's worth, it perpetrates the corny elitism that most of us deal with on a regular basis anyway. Seeing the elite perpetuate elitism really does nothing for me, or, I'd imagine, the majority of your readers (who I would wager are not all Harvard/Yale).
Lat, please put this feature on permanent hiatus, for the love of all things lawyerly, put this one to rest. Or at least get someone who can make it funny/worth reading.
Lat, could you please delete all the repetitive comments by Tachyon (3:23, 3:25, 6:01, 8:04: 1:09, 1:16). They are all obviously from the same bitter anti-elitist. It was fine when he just posted "stupidest thing on the entire Internet" once everytime LEWW comes up, but now this is getting completely out of control and it takes away from my enjoyment of reading comments comparing the relative prestige of the various couples. If you don't want to delete these for your readers at least do it by respect for your co-blogger who is doing an awesome job with the column.
10:31: 8:04 here - female and not the same "guy" as 6:25. And I don't find self-congratulatory 26-year-old nerds "inspiring."
There's an idea. Get rid of the Tier 1 elitism, search the local papers for a few LEWW announcements from Tier 3 or 4 pairings and find the ones where both have . . . jobs at all.
If you were trying to make the case for how lame lawyer-lawyer couples can be, you did it. Team Clarke-Ellis is the hands down winner this week. The rest are a bunch of young, generic attorneys with absolutely nothing distinctive about them. Who cares about first years? One of the gay guys couldn't even get a job in DC and who ever even heard of the firm at which he previously worked? I'd take Dr. Ellis's legal counsel before I'd take any of these nominees' advice.
Keep up the good work. Well, keep fighting the good fight, anyway. Sometimes your work leaves a lot to be desired. For example, this week, two weeks ago and three weeks ago you picked the wrong couple. Two of those times you didn't even two of the clear winners weren't even finalists (this week and three weeks ago).
"We think it adds a nice touch when same-sex weddings are actual weddings, like this one, which took place in Massachusetts."
Laurie, same-sex weddings ARE actual weddings, regardless of whether the marriage itself is recognized by the state in the same way as those of heterosexual couples. To imply that a same-sex couple's ceremony somehow matters less, or is less deserving of recognition, because it took place outside of Massachusetts, is insulting.
LEWW is hilarious--the best thing on AtL by far. Ignore the trolls, Laurie!
Criticizing a recap of NYT wedding announcements for being elitist is like criticizing Disney World for being too geared towards kids.
(I agree that more interesting one-lawyer couples should beat out boring two-lawyer-couples.)
Clarke-Ellis is impressive, but the one JD in the couple does not appear to be practicing law. Shouldn't that be a factor?
"Poor Carl. Among other things, he's apparently unemployable with that TTT law degree."
Indeed. And it looks like Weiner barely wants him in the picture!
C'mon, a same-sex couple called the Weiner-Rollers? BRILLIANT! FIRST PLACE
I love this feature of ATL. Of course, if one of my exes made it to LEWW, I would immediately change my position on this and agree with the haters that this feature should be removed.
With re to which couples should be featured, as a general rule, I like 2 JD couples if the couple went to impressive schools and/or are at/heading to uber-impressive jobs (especially when educational pedigree is questionable), then 1 JD and equally/more prestigious background, then 2 JDs regardless of pedigree ...
I also like the couples from disparate backgrounds, like a Loyola grad marrying a Harvard grad, or other "interesting" tidbits that distinguish one couple from the others.