Legal Eagle Wedding Watch 5.4 - 5.11: Penn-y Wise

Congratulations to Keira Driansky and David Simon, chosen by ATL readers over Kristy Hong and Jonas Blank III as April’s Legal Eagle Couple of the Month.
Now for the next set of entrants, and it’s a crowded field. We think this week’s column sets a record for total number of Ivy League JDs. Here’s our latest crop of outstanding newlyweds:

1. Deborah Adler and Brian Sutherland
2. Rachel Hannaford and Justin Lerer
3. Zoe Segal-Reichlin and Daniel Garodnick
4. Alison Franklin and Shane Milam

Read up on their pedigrees and passions, after the jump.



1. Deborah Adler and Brian Sutherland
(Buy them a soup bowl.)
The Case:
– His-‘n’-hers JDs for this couple (HLS for Deborah, NYU for Brian). She went to Stanford undergrad; he went to the University of Iowa.
– Do we smell the sweet aroma of a federal appellate clerkship? We do indeed! Brian is currently clerking for Second Circuit judge (and judicial hottie) Reena Raggi. Deborah is a senior associate specializing in media litigation at Davis Wright Tremaine.
– Cute, non-annoying meeting story:

The couple met in July 2005, on a streetcar in San Francisco. Ms. Adler, late for work, nearly missed the car.
“I started to run for it, stopped, then made this mad dash across several lanes of traffic,” she said. “The driver saw me and waited. I can’t imagine how different my life would be right now if he hadn’t.”

The Case Against:
– Not a lot to carp on with this somewhat blah but unobjectionable pair.

2. Rachel Hannaford and Justin Lerer
(Buy them a 50-inch plasma television.)
The Case:
– More lawyer-on-lawyer action. This time, a double Harvard man reaches down to fondle the nether regions of the Ivy League, specifically U. Penn, where Rachel got her JD (she was magna at Duke for undergrad).
– Public servants! Rachel’s a lawyer in the housing unit of South Brooklyn Legal Services. Justin was until recently an associate at Paul Weiss, but he left that cold-hearted, third-world-pillaging world; In June he’ll be an assistant United States attorney for the Eastern District of New York in Brooklyn.
The Case Against:
– The NYT dutifully informs us that Justin’s new job is “pending clearance by the Justice Department.” So if you’ve got the goods on him, speak up.

3. Zoe Segal-Reichlin and Daniel Garodnick
(Buy them a tea saucer.)
The Case:
– Yet another dual-JD couple. Zoe was magna at Brown and cum laude at HLS. Daniel was Dartmouth/U. Penn. (Four different Ivy League schools here — we love it!) He also clerked for SDNY Judge Colleen McMahon, who married the couple.
– Zoe is an associate at Cleary Gottlieb and an adjunct professor at Georgetown (despite being only two years out of law school — color us happy for Zoe but sad for Georgetown).
– As his hearty smile and pronounced chin indicate, Daniel is a politician — specifically, a New York City councilman. Apparently this is a full-time gig.
The Case Against:
– Their first date was blind and took place the evening after Zoe had taken the bar exam. “I was so tired that I don’t remember much about it,” she says. That could be good or bad, actually.

4. Alison Franklin and Shane Milam
(Buy them a cheese board.)
The Case:
– Holy crap, do we really have eight lawyers in this column? Yes! And fully half of them are from U. Penn, which we understand has an awesome football team. Alison and Shane attended Princeton and Whitman College, respectively, and met as law students at Penn. Happy Valley, indeed!
The Case Against:
– Here’s how they describe themselves on their wedding website:

Alison is a high powered corporate attorney in her second year at a large firm in Manhattan. Shane is a slightly less high powered tax attorney, who is also in his second year at a large firm in Manhattan.

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We’re not sure what’s up with that. She’s at Greenberg Traurig, and he’s at Dewey & LeBoeuf, and to be honest, neither of them seems particularly high-powered. Maybe they like to role-play.
– Their shimmery, near-translucent whiteness underscores the tragic lack of diversity in this space recently. And we haven’t seen any same-sex Legal Eagles in months! Here’s hoping that the NYT will offer up some more colorful fare in the coming weeks.
The Verdict:
A tough contest this week, but ultimately Team Segal-Reichlin-Garodnick takes the crown, thanks to Zoe’s hotness and Harvard law degree. Congratulations!

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