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Legal Eagle Wedding Watch 10.7.07: Sweet Virginia

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We had a tough time picking our finalist couples this week, and LEWW will be the first to admit that we’re not totally certain we chose the right three. (We’re sure our commenters and e-mailers will let us know if we’ve dropped the ball.) Specifically, in addition to our three finalists, we considered these three couples, and if you work at Shearman, Simpson Thacher, Wachtell, Willkie, or Ropes & Gray, you might want to click on those links to read about your colleagues or their spawn.
But onward to this week’s finalists! Here they are:

1.) Nisa Leung and James Lin
2.) Beth Schonmuller and John Williams
3.) Virginia Boyd and J. B. Lockhart IV

More on these couples, after the jump.

1.) Nisa Leung and James Lin
The Case:
– Mouth-watering prestige, with an international flavor! Nisa, who has an undergraduate degree from Cornell and an MBA from Stanford, is a partner in a Shanghai venture capital fund. James, who was summa at Harvard undergrad and cum laude at HLS, is a partner in Davis Polk’s Hong Kong office. He also has a master’s and a doctorate from Oxford.
– Nisa’s dad is the owner of a clothing manufacturing company and recently became chairman of Hong Kong’s Football Association. (Not the Michael Vick kind of football, the other kind — although come to think of it, what would they do to Michael Vick in Hong Kong?) Her mother is on the Legislative Council of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region Council.
The Case Against:
– Fierce loyalty to the approximately 20 million Lins in our clan forbids us from saying anything bad about this impressive pair. Welcome to the family, Nisa!

2.) Beth Schonmuller and John Williams
(Buy them a towel bar.)
The Case:
– John has married a disproportionately hot wife, but that’s not why he looks like he just gobbled up a smug-burger. It’s because he’s achieved the top-Ivy hat-trick, with degrees from Harvard, Princeton, and Yale (law [cum laude], undergrad [magna], and a master’s in philosophy, respectively). He’s currently a litigation associate at Williams & Connolly.
– Beth, who’s Harvard (magna)/Harvard, an associate at Kirkland DC, and a raven-haired stunner, was a special counsel to the Senate Judiciary Committee for eight months during the Roberts and Alito nominations.
The Case Against:
– There’s something weird about the way the article describes Beth’s Judiciary Committee service. It’s as if Arlen Specter looked around in July 2005 and said, “Guys, we’re facing a bitter battle over two nominations that could change the direction of the Supreme Court. The liberal interest groups will fight us every inch of the way. We need 2004 HLS grad Beth Schonmuller up here, stat.”

3.) Virginia Boyd and J. B. Lockhart IV
(Buy them a claret glass.)
The Case:
– Each side of the union arrived at the church with its own Episcopal priest. Stand back, people — we’ve struck a vein of pure WASP gold.
– The bride and groom both have undergraduate degrees from Yale (she was summa), but they met at Harvard while in graduate school (law for her, business for him). Now she’s working for Big Media in the digital legal affairs unit at Warner Music Group, and he’s at a venture capital fund.
– Just look at Virginia. The sweet smile, the tasteful jewelry — class is seeping from every pore of her alabaster skin. Is it possible that she is not descended from a long line of business titans? No, it’s not! Her father is retired from the chairmanship of Boyd Steamship Corporation, a company founded by Virginia’s great-great uncle in 1909. In other words, her ancestors were already exploiting the third world back when ours were eating raw squirrel and wiping themselves with leaves.
The Case Against:
– If only James Bicknell Lockhart IV went by the impish, entitled “Ivy,” the picture of croquet-playing, pastel-sweater-wearing privilege would be complete. Alas, he attempts to pass as a commoner with the fumbling, pedestrian “J.B.” We are not fooled, James Bicknell Lockhart IV — your princely lineage is evident in every strand of your billowy hair.
The Verdict:
Honestly, we feel like we did when we were choosing our wedding gown. LEWW is wracked with self-doubt; we honestly can see a case for ranking these couples in any order, and we don’t want to get this one wrong. So we’re going to try an experiment and let ATL readers pick this week’s winning couple. Don’t get too excited; we’re not quite ready to yield the scepter of power permanently. We’ll see how this goes.
Check back here to see how the voting’s going; the poll will close late Wednesday night.

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