Legal Eagle Wedding Watch 10/28 and 11/4: Hack-cidentally in Love
Yes, yes, LEWW has been a tad neglectful of our wedding-watching duties. Our full-time job has been, well -- full-time. And then there are all our fabulous society engagements.
Anyway, let's face it: High wedding season ended in mid-October. You know people aren't focusing on weddings when the Times hauls out the perennial "Is the Bride Changing her Name?" article. Yawn. But fear not -- while you're focusing on Christmas shopping and year-end bonuses, LEWW will be watching the weddings.
And here's the latest bunch:
1.) Matthew Morningstar and Alan Van Capelle2.) Elizabeth Hack and Richard Larach
More about these couples, after the jump.
1.) Matthew Morningstar and Alan Van Capelle
(Buy them a tissue box.)
The Case:
- Matthew, the lawyer half of this couple (he's the one on the left) is Columbia/Cornell. He's now a VP in Morgan Stanley's legal and compliance division.
- Alan isn't into all that Ivy League foolishness (he went to Queens College), but he's one seriously civic-minded dude. He's the executive director of the Empire State Pride Agenda and serves on the board of the Jewish Funds for Justice.
The Case Against:
- They're both attractive, but their head-size disparity alarms us.
2.) Elizabeth Hack and Richard Larach
(Buy them an expandable trivet.)
The Case:
- Elizabeth is a partner at McDermott Will & Emery; Richard is a "partnership member" and associate general counsel at KPMG.
- At 43 and 45, they're older than the couples we usually profile, but we're not dinging them for it because it appears to be the first marriage for both.
The Case Against:
- Credential disparity alert: Richard is Princeton/Harvard; Elizabeth is SUNY-Stony Brook/George Washington. But she makes up for this by being quite foxy for a woman who's spent the past decade scratching and clawing her way to BigLaw prominence.
3.) Allison Hersh and Daniel London
(Buy them a $370 martini shaker.)
The Case:
- Allison and Daniel met as undergrads at the University of Pennsylvania. Allison was cum laude and went to Georgetown for her JD. She's now an associate at Cooley Godward Kronish.
- Daniel was not cum laude, so he ended up at Brooklyn Law School. But that won't count against him at the law firm of London Fischer, which his father founded.
The Case Against:
- From the write-up: "In 1999, the bride was an intern at the White House, where she helped write the traditional Thanksgiving speech in which a turkey receives a pardon." Ugh. How lame and cutesily self-satisfied is that? Allison touts the same non-credential on her firm bio, where she's sporting a Monica Lewinsky hairdo that we find wildly fetching.
4.) Hayley Lattman and Ryan Geftman
(Buy them Season Two of The Office.)
The Case:
- We love the hip hotness of this pairing. If we made a movie about the couple above, we'd cast Hayley and Ryan to play them.
- Hayley was cum laude at U. Penn and got her JD from Columbia. Now she's a senior counsel at MTV networks. Ryan, who has an undergrad degree from Penn State and an MBA from Indiana University, is a director of global market development at Standard & Poor's.
The Case Against:
- Their website is on the annoying side. Click on "Proposal" and you get a way-too-detailed tale involving some garden -- oh, wait -- it's "considered the premier French formal garden in the US." Well, then. Even worse, if you click on "Dress Code," you get a tutorial on how to tie a bow tie.
The Verdict:
Despite no picture, the accomplished MW&E and KPMG partners tower over a field of whippersnappers this week. Congratulations, Team Hack-Larach!
(40) 
"The bride and bridegroom, both 28, met at the University of Pennsylvania, from which they graduated, she cum laude."
nice.
Ya Allison to 190
Bernard London is a cheap ass sucka.
get back to antitrust
Arghhh! Not foxy. Don't follow that link. Don't do it!
I find the lack of a poll here highly disturbing.
Damn...The lack of blue-chip law firm credentials on these couples is mildly disturbing...
Don't let the haters get to you Laurie...
If ATL/LEWW lasts as an institution, some of these lawyers might be able to claim the honor of being featured multiple times on LEWW... that would be both disturbing and kinda cool.
LEWW is the worst feature ever.
A tissue box for the gay couple? Why don't you just say a huge box of lube and a pillow outfitted with a mouthpiece!!
you sound as though you've had some experience
you are ccccclassssssss
11:11
I'm sure their pantry is already stocked with a lifetime supply of flavored lube.
what flavor do YOU prefer?
WGWAG = White Guy With Asian Guy
How is it that couple # 3 is freakishly similar to couple # 4, only couple # 3 is ~ 10 years older? I suspect time travel is somehow involved...
Uh, we only get gays and jews and gay jews in this edition?
The only things on this planet more annoying than Hayley and Ryan's website are LEWW and Laurie Lin.
The proposal sounds ghey:
"We had champagne and chocolate covered strawberries and sat.. and walked around.. and called our immediate families. And then we went to the Philadelphia airport -- where Hayley's friend, Tara, met us for a little bit -- and then Hayley and I flew down to Miami for the weekend to decompress at the Standard Miami -- which is really great -- and hang-out at the pool and do a couple of spa things, etc."
As for the bow ties - c'mon, isn't it easier to buy a clip-on tie? Losers.
"Traditional elegance requires a bow tie in black grosgrain -- a closely woven corded fabric or rayon and cotton -- or slightly textured black silk. Today, for formal occasions, many men express their individuality by matching the color or pattern of their bow tie and cummerbund."
Wait - this explains it all. They met on Nerve dot com, and she is senior counsel (wtf, at age 31?) for MTV Networks.
"piece_of_flair
Why You Should Get To Know Me
I'm witty &irreverent, outgoing & open-minded, cute & sassy, kind & generous, creative & artsy, and really really sweet [sic]
"I don't offend easily. I'm fairly low-maintence, [sic] but still look put together. I'm a down-to-earth city kid who hasn't yet been jaded.
"I have nothing to prove. I've been told by several people recently that I have a very positive aura."
How can it be that the winning couple consists of an admitted HACK and a guy who has the same name as an indicted icky plaintiff's lawyer?
My dream of getting made fun of on a law blog (though, sadly, not by Bob Loblaw) has come true. Awesome!
OH SNAP! Lat be all like "no cum laude...Brooklyn"....oooooooh shit!!! thats just wrong yo, thats just wrong.
12:12, what are you talking about? Said indicted icky plaintiff's lawyer is Bill Lerach, not "Richard Larach." Get your facts straight.
With that said, the couples in this column are epic fail today (more so than the usual amount of fail).
lame all around...
Such a lame and pathetic "feature."
This is the most retarded part of this site by far! WHO CARES?! They'll all be divorced in less than 10 years anyway!!
More evidence that Lat prefers the same sex.
Uhhh....Ryan is far from "hot hippness" (unless you're Lat)....how'd he land a babe like Hayley?
But yeah, seriously, who cares about this stupid crap?
Again, people... if you don't like it, you don't have to click on it.
Or comment on it.
LEWW is usually my favorite feature on ATL, but the couples' credentials this week are hugely disappointing. If these are the best lawyers who got married recently, I can't blame Laurie for not having posted in weeks. Well, at least no one is going to complain that the feature is "elitist" today.
I will admit to really loving LEWW, and to being very glad that it is back.
But . . .
. . . now that it is . . .
I'm going to register a (small) gripe: What's with the choices this week? Not that these aren't fine couples -- they are, and lots of congrats to them -- but all pale in comparison to Julianna Margulies (actress, now on a law-related show) marrying attorney Keith Lieberthal. Now, I know that wedding was reported in People, not the NYTimes, but it's a legit LEWW merger. And, last weeks NYT featured couple, Katherine Van Loon and John Steitz, should have been included in this week's LEWW: He's a former pro baseball player whose fallback career was being an attorney (by way of Yale Law no less) and she's a tall, thin, and beautiful blonde doctor. Although, come to think of it, perhaps they are too nauseatingly perfect to include here lest us normal souls become overly envious . . . .
1:05, these are all good points and this is very troubling for all LEWW fans. Did Laurie purposefully select mediocre couples just to appease the repeated and vehement accusations of "elitism" that we see in every LEWW thread? This would be really sad if this were the case. LEWW is my favorite part of ATL (along with SCOTUS clerk coverage) but I don't see the point of it if Laurie doesn't pick the best couples (and I thought she did a great job at this in the past).
Honest question: Are there any guys who are fans of LEWW?
When I become President I will put a stop to all straight marriages and amend the Constitution so that marriage is defined only as a union between two people of the same sex. I also plan on imposing a special lawyer tax to pay for a new program I like to call, "Buying Votes from Homosexuals".
I am a guy and I am a fan of LEWW. And, for the record, I am not a fan of anything that is typically known for appealing mainly to females or homosexuals.
1:05 and 1:10:
Note the dates in the heading. Laurie is catching up on old weeks (late Oct. and early Nov.).
No doubt the ones you mention will be featured eventually (although regarding the Margulies one, I don't think LEWW covers non-NYT weddings).
From Hayley and Ryan's website: "Taxis are easy to come by in the city. However, if you as urban as we are, you might consider taking the subway or the bus. "
I am not as urban as they are, but I am a straight male, and I do love LEWW.
Although I am the type who is usually susceptible to girlish distractions.
Hayley looks great; she must have lost 50 lbs since CLS.
I love LEWW, but it is still disappointing that the column so often serves to promote a particular political agenda (as it does this week).
"If you [sic] as urban [sic] as we are..."?
Did they maybe mean "If you are as urbane as we are"?
They were also registered at the Terence Conran Shop in "New YorK [sic] NY."
But, really, what did you expect for people who met on Nerve?
So much suckage and fail.
Give me a break - half of the assholes here hate this "feature", and it's clear that the handful of complete FUCKING MORONS who do read this are disappointed when it chronicles lawyers who aren't from ELITE white-gloved families and schools.
This may be the first LEWW I enjoyed. Laurie, thanks for making this less about elitism and more about people ;)