Legal Eagle Wedding Watch 2.11 and 2.17: Spellbound

We’re back with another installment of the Legal Eagle Wedding Watch, where we weigh the relative prestige and fabulosity of the newlywed lawyers who are brave enough to splash their happy news across the pages of the New York Times.
Here are the latest LEWW hopefuls:

1.) Mindy Jaffe and Per Chilstrom
2.) Jennifer Abrams and David Stier
3.) Christine Pelosi and Peter Kaufman

More about these couples, after the jump.


1.) Mindy Jaffe and Per Chilstrom
(Buy them a menorah.)
The Case:
– We welcome the return of high-grade Ivy credentials to this space. The groom did his undergrad at Princeton (and got his JD from Georgetown). The bride, a pediatric oncology nurse, graduated from Tufts and has a master’s degree in nursing from Columbia.
– The groom is an associate in the New York office of Clifford Chance.
The Case Against:
– “Per.” Just “Per.” It’s not even short for anything. And is it pronounced like the fruit, or like “per se”?
– No picture, not even on the Clifford Chance website. But you can read all about Mindy and Per’s luxury rental and its barbecue terrace here.
2.) Jennifer Abrams and David Stier
(Buy them a plunger.)
The Case:
– And we’re back to the middle ranks of the Ivies. This couple sports three Penn degrees: two undergrad (summa for him) and one JD (his).
– David is an associate at Davis Polk. Jennifer, whose father was a minor figure in the Bush I administration, does something incomprehensible involving computers and medical stuff.
– David’s proposal, at the Broadway show “The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee,” was written up in the New York Daily News:

The 30-year-old legal eagle knew that the show invites audience members on stage to spell words so he secretly prearranged for Abrams to be one of them and – for both their families to be there.
After correctly spelling “jihad” (holy war) and incorrectly spelling “kumiss” (camel’s milk), Abrams returned to her seat and figured her Broadway debut was over. But at the curtain call, she was called back to the stage to spell one last word.
The word was “matrimony.”
Stier joined his girlfriend of 18 months on stage as it dawned on her – and the hundreds watching – what was about to happen.
Oohs, ahhs and enthusiastic clapping all but drowned out Jennifer’s “Yes, yes, yes” to David’s big question.

C-U-T-E. Just like Jennifer!
The Case Against:
– Putting a plunger on your registry, even an overpriced $100 model, is just ghastly bad taste. We’d love to hear how they’re going to phrase that thank-you note!
3.) Christine Pelosi and Peter Kaufman
(Buy them a salad fork.)
The Case:
– The mother of the bride is none other than Nancy Pelosi, the 60th Speaker of the United States House of Representatives and the second person in the presidential line of succession.
– The father of the groom is Peter Kaufman, who directed “The Right Stuff” and “Quills” (“soft-gore porn“).
– Christine and Peter are trailing along in the wake of their famous parents. The groom, whose previous marriage ended in divorce, works for his father’s production company. The bride is the author of Campaign Boot Camp: Basic Training for Future Leaders . She also has a J.D. from Hastings (they both went to decent undergrad schools: Georgetown for her and Berkeley for him).
– Christine is a superdelegate!
The Case Against:
– Whatever your feelings about Nancy Pelosi, she is undeniably a total fox for a woman pushing up against 70. So we’d expect her daughter to be aesthetically blessed. As social commentator Will.I.Am has astutely observed:

If the girl real fine,
Nine times out of ten,
She fine just like her mama.

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The system has broken down here. It’s not that Christine is unattractive. We can see her cleaning up quite well with a haircut and some makeup, but here she looks . . . disheveled. It doesn’t help that the husband looks like he just staggered out of bed. We can practically smell the morning breath on him.
The Verdict:
Team Pelosi-Kaufman brings the family clout, but it lacks a practicing lawyer. Team Abrams-Stier has cuteness, a strong — if somewhat needy and attention-seeking — proposal story, and a job at a prestigious law firm. Therefore they are ATL’s couple of the week. Congratulations!

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