Legal Eagle Wedding Watch 4.19: Partnership Prospects

The first weekend after Easter traditionally marks the beginning of High Wedding Season, where the weekly NYT fodder switches from merely interesting to heart-stoppingly impressive. This year is no exception, as last Sunday’s pages were chock-full of prestigious lawyer couplings.

Here are the three best:

1. Dena Ringold and David Gossett

2. Ashley Potter and J. P. Bruynes

3. Tracy Zuckerman and Ryan Van Grack

Our complete analysis of these couples, after the jump.


1. Dena Ringold and David Gossett

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(Buy them a wine coaster.)

The Case:

– Dena, a graduate of Swarthmore and the London School of Economics, is an economist at the World Bank. David holds an undergraduate degree from Reed College, a master’s in psychology from the University of Pennsylvania, and a JD from the University of Chicago. He’s a partner at Mayer Brown, where he specializes in Supreme Court and appellate litigation.

– The bride and groom are accomplished enough, but their parents are dazzling brainiacs, too: a professor of psychiatry at Stanford, a translator of Dutch fiction, a specialist in Shakespearean drama, and a musicologist specializing in 19th-century Italian opera.

– She’s legitimately cute, and he’s working the Bill-Gates-geeky-hot thing. A strong aesthetic showing for two 39-year-olds.

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The Case Against:

– The announcement doesn’t say how they met, but we suspect eHarmony or It’s Just Lunch. A union this perfect could only have been achieved under laboratory conditions.

2. Ashley Potter and J. P. Bruynes

(Buy them a $410 pierced vegetable spoon.)

The Case:

– Another later-in-life match between a Biglaw partner and a perky brunette. This bride, a graduate of Boston University, works in special events at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Her groom, who is of Dutch extraction, graduated from Trinity College and Vanderbilt Law School and is a partner at Akin Gump, where he specializes in hedge funds.

The Case Against:

– Sign of the times: Their Williams-Sonoma registry (representative item: set of 10 glass bowls, $38) is almost wiped out. Their Tiffany and Co. registry (representative item: $5,595 in silver) remains wide open.

3. Tracy Zuckerman and Ryan Van Grack

(Buy them a loaf pan.)

The Case:

– Our final couple is a bit younger than our first two, but no less impressive. Both the bride and groom are Harvard Law School graduates (the groom was magna). Tracy has an undergraduate degree from Cornell; Ryan was summa at Duke.

– Tracy works for Population Services International (which sounds like a sinister pest-control operation but is actually a non-profit), while Ryan is an associate at Williams and Connolly.

– The co-officiant at their wedding was Judge Michael Daly Hawkins of the Ninth Circuit, for whom the groom clerked.

The Case Against:

– The mother of the groom bears the inexcusable name “Gail Van Grack-Aks,” and she teaches elementary school. You have no one to blame but yourself, Mrs. Van Ass-Crack.

The Verdict:

– It’s a close, close contest between Team Ringold-Gossett and Team Zuckerman-Van Grack. Mayer Brown partner, or two HLS degrees? Once again, we’ll let our readers make the call: