Legal Eagle Wedding Watch 7.13 and 7.20: Columbian Dictatorship
We interrupt the spirited smackdown of ATL Idol to bring you a couple of LEWW-related announcements. First, as expected, Team Ho-Glover scored a decisive win in June's Couple of the Month voting. LEWW salutes this glorious SCOTUS - WGWAG - Friend-of-Lat juggernaut!
In other news, two notable grooms didn't make our list of finalists this week. The first is Lee Bollinger, son of current Columbia University president (and former University of Michigan president) Lee Bollinger. And the second is Paul Lieberstein, who looks a lot like that guy who plays Toby in The Office. Because he is that guy.
On to this week's contestants:
1. Sue-Yun Ahn and Charles Kitcher2. Jennifer Hare and Jaron Shipp
Click on the link below to read more about these impressive legal matches.
1. Sue-Yun Ahn and Charles Kitcher
(Buy them a grapefruit spoon.)
The Case:
- This two-lawyer combo met during law school at Columbia. Charles probably bleeds Columbia blue (which is an actual color): His parents are both philosophy professors there, and he graduated summa from the college. Sue-Yun did her undergrad at NYU, graduating magna.
- They had an Article III officiant: US District Judge Denise Cote, for whom Sue-Yun clerked.
- SCOTUS alert! After the Cote clerkship, Sue-Yun was a Tatel Tot, and when she gets back from her honeymoon she'll report for duty at the chambers of Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg.
- Charles recently finished a clerkship with US District Judge Richard Owen. Later this month he'll start at Covington & Burling.
The Case Against:
- We generally have nothing against Columbia, but there's too much of it in this write-up. They even had their ceremony at the Columbia Club. If you must double down on a school, that school should be Harvard.
2. Jennifer Hare and Jaron Shipp
(Buy them an egg plate.)
The Case:
- Decent but not stellar educational story here. Both the bride and groom have JDs from Howard. She did her undergrad at Emory; he went to Penn.
- Both are associates at well-regarded law firms in New York. Jennifer is in the corporate group at Simpson Thacher, and Jaron does litigation at Latham.
The Case Against:
- They have music on their website. Even worse, it sounds like it's from that scene in a soap opera where the couple makes love because they're trapped under an avalanche and have only hours to live. Except they get rescued, and she ends up pregnant.
3. Gena Hatcher and David Lenzi
(Buy them dinner at The French Laundry.)
The Case:
- This couple met at Amherst, where she was cum laude and he was summa. David cashed in that summa at Yale, where he earned a JD and a master's in French literature. Gena got her JD from NYU.
- Gena, another Simpson Thacherite, is an associate in the firm's personal planning department. David does corporate work at Davis Polk, where he is listed as a "law clerk." (We note again that he attended YLS, whose graduates have been known to fail the bar at an unseemly rate.)
The Case Against:
- Explaining that "we already have enough kitchenware to fill several New York City sized kitchens," the couple asks their guests to "give a gift that will last a lifetime -- our memories of a fabulous honeymoon." We've mocked similar honeyfunds in this space before. That said, their set-up strikes us as marginally more tasteful than others we've seen, because it allows the gift-giver to designate their cash toward a specific part of the trip. This has the advantage of making thank-you notes more personal -- but perhaps ickily so. ("Dear Uncle Eugene, Thanks so much for the calistoga mud body masque. It did wonders for my backne.")
4. Athena Theodoro and Daniel Adamson
(Buy them a Turkish bath sheet.)
The Case:
- Dan, a double Yalie with a master's from Oxford, was a classmate of ours at YLS. He struck us as an extremely likeable guy who was never around. And now we know why: he was wooing Athena, who was a Yale undergrad at the time.
- These days Dan is a senior vice president and hedge fund strategist at Lehman Brothers. He's also the co-author of The Blue Way: How to Profit by Investing in a Better World.
- Athena's parents own Gus' Place, a Greek cafe and bar in Greenwich Village. Athena holds a certificate in professional culinary arts and has been a freelance editorial assistant for Food & Wine magazine. Perhaps it's only because A Good Year has been on HBO a lot lately, but we're loving the vibe of the high-powered hedge fund type falling for the earthy and tempestuous kitchen goddess.
The Case Against:
- On the other hand, A Good Year totally sucked.
The Verdict:
Team Ahn-Kitcher may not pulse with excitement, but it's hard to argue with that SCOTUS clerkship. Congratulations!
(0) 
boring
Is Gena Hatcher related to Geri Hatcher? In other words, do we have a Spice Girls relative on our hands?
"If ya wanna be my husband, ya gotta get with my friends...."
Congrats Charles and Sue-Yun!
How do you consistently find YLS graduates? Isn't this the super-prestigious school that graduates only two-hundred people every year? You make its graduates seem pedestrian.
Way to go Charles and Sue.
David Lenzi. Wow. Hot.
DPW clearly takes looks into account when hiring.
Why is couple 2 even in this round up?
Dare I ask, is LEWW engaging in affirmative action?
10:47 - Can you please stop spamming ATL with links to your crappy website that nobody reads?
The world has enough legal blogs. It doesn't need more. Just stop.
haha 7
Lenzi has passed the bar - See results for NY July 2007. Maybe he's had too many brushes with the law or some other character issue to prevent admission...
gratz v. bollinger.
Jesus Christ, # 2.
Geri Halliwell = Spice Girl
Teri Hatcher = Desperate Housewife
Geri Hatcher = Fail.
Not only do they ask for money for their honeymoon, their website now advises that, even though their honeymoon is over, they are still accepting gifts.
Judge Halverson is back on the air for day 2 - cnn.com
Both parents are philosophy professors? My god, what a terrible childhood...
The fact that he is not admitted yet does not mean that he failed the bar or has issues with his character and fitness to practice law. Some people are just slow to fill out the application, and when you are already working at a large firm there is no real incentive to hurry to submit it since admission does not affect your pay or the assignments you are given.
Lame. I vote RON - Re-Open Nominations.
And as for Paul Lieberstein, he's not a lawyer, she's not a lawyer. The only lawyer in the mix is his father. Since when does LEWW highlight grooms that aren't lawyers, if only by making them prominent in their absence. Perhaps it's because all four couples up there are boring as sin. And not the cool sins - the boring ones.
Did it ever occur to you that he wasn't around because he was at the Business School? He probably didn't want to be a lawyer if he's already an iBanker such a short time after graduation.
"The fact that he is not admitted yet does not mean that he failed the bar or has issues with his character and fitness to practice law. Some people are just slow to fill out the application...."
16, if the guy complete 90% of the application process that involves sitting for the bar, and can't complete the rest of it, then he doesn't deserve to be admitted in the first place.
12:
this is 2. You are correct, sir. I will now light myself on fire for not knowing the difference between a Spice Girl and a Desperate housewife.
Congrats Sue & Charles!
Um, why has no one said this about #1:
WGWAG!!!!!
Columbia is notorious for that.
20 - Then my work here is done.
12.
22 - perhaps b/c WGWAG stands for white girls with asian guys and not the other way 'round.
how could you miss the wedding on Tim Wu and Katie Judge? If thats not legal wedding royalty, I don't know what is.
16, one decent incentive to fill out the damn application is . . . so people don't look at your bio on your firm's website and wonder if maybe you're listed as a freaking LAW CLERK because you failed the bar.
how could you miss the wedding on Tim Wu and Katie Judge? If thats not legal wedding royalty, I don't know what is.
hey. WGWAG could/should? also stand for white guts with asians girls....hugs
26, one huge incentive *not* to fill out the damn application: CLE requirements kick in once you're admitted, and those classes are boring and take up a lot of time.
So Davis Polk lets people practice law (and pays them associate salaries), even if they are not members of the bar. And this is a good idea because CLE classes are "boring"?
Interesting.
29, one huge incentive *to* fill out the damn application: people will know that you're so lazy that you can't even commit to CLE courses, which, by definition, 100% of lawyers in good-standing take, thus making your professional existence a farce.
The problem with construing WGWAG to include white guys with asian girls is that the entire gist of the original sentiment is lost. That sentiment consisting of an asian dude proudly announcing that he "scored a white chick!!"
Wow, the eyebrow symmetry is way off this week.
Wait, it still counts if only one member of the couple went to law school? I thought both had to be lawyers!
Actually, seems like Lat makes up the rules as goes...i remember on LEWW neither the groom nor the bride were lawyers..but the father of the bride is quite rich (or maybe it wasnt a LEWW, i dont retaim the ATL gossip).
1. It's "Tatel Tot," not "Tater Tot." One clerked for a DC Circuit judge. The other is a really cheap fried chunk of potato.
2. This is nice:
"Even worse, it sounds like it's from that scene in a soap opera where the couple makes love because they're trapped under an avalanche and have only hours to live. Except they get rescued, and she ends up pregnant."
1. Lee Bollinger's hair was nothing to laugh at.
2. Calling for BLACK UP in voting Hare-Shipp as this week's winners.
Congratulations Danny and Athena! You are a great couple and look great in your NYT photo!
28: save your damn hugs - I don't want 'em.
The reason we don't call white guys with asian girls anything special is because they're not. White guy scored his bad self some wing-wang poontang? Old news. Asian guy got someone to notice the fiery passion in his slanty little eyes (you'd have to look really hard - they don't open terribly wide)? *That* deserves an acronym. And a cookie.
Also, Kitcher was a summer associate at Simpson Thacher so STB owns this week. Congrats, Charles and Sue-Yun!
#6: "DPW clearly takes looks into account when hiring."
Check out their in-house directory w/ photos sometime; you may be disabused of that notion - and those are the photos they *chose*.
-- voluntary DPW departee who doesn't miss it. ever.
Lenzi passed the bar http://www.nylawyer.com/display.php/file=/exam/resultNov07/1107hl
39 -are you sure you don't want my hugs...because you sound like you really need to be hugged -_-
NERDS!
NERDS!
NERDS!
NERDS!
#7 is an ass. what's with the obsession with affirmative action on this site??? couple #2 -- both went to great schools and they're at fantastic firms. oh, and easily the most attractive couple in this unfortunate looking group.
45 - but 7 is correct
what exactly is 7 correct about?
Lenzi...hot? hmmm....that wasn't the word that came to mind, but ok.
Lenzi...hot? hmmm....that wasn't the word that came to mind, but ok.
#7: I work with Jaron and I can tell you that he is an excellent lawyer and all around great guy. Certainly he's much better than you. You should feel ashamed of yourself.
I spent a year in France with Lenzi during undergrad. He's brilliant, kind, and hilarious. And law-abiding. Not one to fail the C&F evaluation. Congrats to David and his bride.
Women who take their husbands name are idiots.
@ 7, wasn't the May couple of the month black or 1/2 black (whatever)? Right, so LEWW engages in this 'practice' often.
Anyway, its nice to see BLACK couple in the mix.
I work with Lenzi at DPW, and he is indeed a very kind, intelligent, and a down-to-earth guy. Congrats, Dave.
I work with Lenzi at DPW, and he is indeed a very kind, intelligent, and a down-to-earth guy. Congrats, Dave.
I know someone who took the bar in 2005 and has yet to be admitted due to character and fitness. The guy is a psycho and has no business practicing law but has appealed to the Supreme Court of his state to overrule the Bar's determination. I really, really hope they deny his appeal. He didn't even disclose half of his fuckedupness.
Anyways, he's still employed AS AN ASSOCIATE at a law firm that just states that he passed the bar, but his admission is pending. I think its bullshit. I wish they would just fire him already.