Media and Journalism, Reality TV, Romance and Dating

Skadden Associate Graces The Cover of In Touch Magazine Thanks to Rumored Relationship with The Bachelorette

By  
on

It’s not every day that we see a Biglaw associate on the cover of a celebrity gossip magazine. So we were a bit shocked when a tipster sent along the scanned image (right) of last week’s In Touch magazine, with this message:

The guy identified as “Ali’s new guy” in this week’s Intouch weekly (and pictured on the cover) is a Skadden associate — and I think a fairly well-regarded one at that.

Ali, of course, is the current star of The Bachelorette. Background from our resident celeb gossip expert Marin:

This season stars Bachelorette Ali Fedotowsky, an unemployed 25-year-old who quit her job at Facebook and moved back in with her parents to be on the show. Fans of the series will recall that Ali was a castoff from last season’s Bachelor, where she endeared herself to fans by wearing low-cut dresses, crying frequently, and vaguely resembling a poor man’s Reese Witherspoon as seen in dim light through cataracts. Anyhow, she’s back this season and more determined than ever to find love with one of 25 white bachelors, not including the one Hispanic dude, Roberto.

The Skadden Arps associate is not one of the two lawyers who was competing for her hand on the show. So this story would ruin the season, if true. Who is this associate?

His name is Patrick Hammon. He’s a UCLA Law ’07 grad working as a litigation associate in Skadden’s LA Palo Alto office. We’ve heard Hammon got grief for not being hard-bodied in the mag’s paparazzi photo of him. But comparing a Biglaw associate with the celebs that usually grace the mag’s cover seems unfair — their work involves regular motions at the gym, not those labored over at a computer.

Sponsored

The Skadden website doesn’t offer up photos, but in his Facebook profile photos, he’s better than law school hot. He could be a hunky stand-in for Avatar’s Sam Worthington. We could see why the Bachelorette would go for him, but he says they’re just friends. From InTouch Weekly:

While she portrays herself to the world as a sweet, gullible romantic who wants nothing more than to find the man of her dreams, sources close to Ali describe her as a fame-seeking party girl with more than one skeleton in her closet, a slew of unsavory friends — and quite possibly, a man in her life. According to a source, Ali isn’t any more single than those notorious “taken” contestants, and she rushed into the arms of her new man, Patrick Hammon, shortly after she finished filming the show.

While Patrick, 29, tells In Touch, “We are absolutely not dating, we are just friends,” a source close to Ali insists that the 25-year-old hooked up with Patrick, who is from San Jose, Calif., “right when she got back from filming and even before she left.” Though they’re not dating exclusively, Ali and Patrick definitely like spending time together, the source says, explaining, “They’re not so serious, but they’re having fun.” As dead-set as she seems on finding the love of her life on The Bachelorette, the source says Ali has been seeing Patrick on and off since ending the show and loves hanging out with him because “he’s good-looking and has a great career,” the source says. “He’s smart.”

Maybe this will help Skadden compete with Davis Polk as the firm with the hottest associates.

Hammon was in Brazil when the magazine came out. He says the story is rubbish. We reached out to him, and he reiterated that he doesn’t belong in the tabloid. He told us via email:

“I am not dating Ali. She is just a friend. I think the story was the product of some gossip that snowballed its way to the tabloids.”

Sponsored

We hear colleagues at Skadden were getting calls to ascertain the truth of the story — certainly annoying, but at least the magazine attempted some due diligence.

We’re sure this is a headache for Hammon, but we’re just glad to see a mainstream gossip publication that appreciates how hot Biglaw types are.

Bachelorette Ali’s dirty secrets exposed! [In Touch]

Earlier: Meet This Season’s Lawyers from The Bachelorette

Topics

, , , , ,