Lawyerly Lairs: Latham Partner Gives His Wife a Fabulous Paris Pad for Her Birthday

Earlier this year, Latham & Watkins laid off some 400 employees (190 associates and 250 staff). This caused many to wonder about how tough times were getting at Latham.
Well, don’t shed tears for LW partners just yet. From the New York Times:

If a tourist passing along the Rue du Cloître Notre-Dame just looks up, it is not hard to glimpse, through the open windows above, the rich colors of old master paintings that have been stretched across a ceiling in Linda and Bryant Edwards’s first-floor apartment.

And from the home itself, in an elegant Haussmann building dating to 1905, the family has its own view — of the garden behind Notre Dame Cathedral….

When her husband, 54, presented her with the apartment as a gift for her 40th birthday, Mrs. Edwards envisioned a kind of “Tale of Two Cities” life, split between Paris and what was then the couple’s home in London.

The generous husband in question, Bryant Edwards, is a partner at Latham & Watkins. Last year he moved to Dubai, where he serves as managing partner of the firm’s Middle East office. The Edwardses now use their Paris apartment as a pied-à-terre when they return to the Continent.
So, the question you’re all wondering: How much did this amazing apartment cost?


The price of the three-bedroom, two-bath residence isn’t disclosed in the NYT article — but we can guess. The apartment is 1,723 square feet, and real estate experts consulted by the Times mentioned ranges of either $1,460 – $2,000 or $1,728 – $2,660 a square foot (prices that would make even a Manhattanite blush).
Conservatively assuming that the Edwards apartment, which has been meticulously renovated, clocks in at around $2K a square, you’re looking at a $3.4 million apartment. That’s one heck of a birthday present! It puts the Birkin bag you got for your wife to shame.
The Edwards apartment is pretty sick. It’s luxuriously appointed, with the finest materials, and it’s filled with valuable art and antiquities. Read more about it in the article or spin through the slideshow (see links below).
A Renovation in Paris [New York Times]
Summer in Paris: Slideshow [New York Times]

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