Akin Gump, John Edwards, Supreme Court Clerks, Weddings

Legal Eagle Wedding Watch: The Voice

Last week, we pretended that it wasn't January by looking back at some of the biggest legal weddings of late 2011. There was a lot of muy prestigioso lawyer matrimony in the last part of the year. Before we delve into the January crop of weddings, which -- let's face it -- is often subpar, here are some from the fall that we haven't featured yet. These are good ones, folks. Think Rhodes Scholars. Think SCOTUS clerks....

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This week we’re pretending that it’s not January by looking back at some of the biggest legal weddings of late 2011. There was a lot of muy prestigioso lawyer matrimony in the last part of the year. Before we delve into the January crop of weddings, which — let’s face it — is often subpar, here are some from the fall that we haven’t featured yet.

These are good ones, folks. Think Rhodes Scholars. Think SCOTUS clerks.

These are our finalists:

Lacey Schwartz and Antonio Delgado

Trisha Anderson and Charles Newman

Cate Edwards and Trevor Upham

Get the scoop on these couples, plus even more lawyer newlyweds, after the jump.

Lacey Schwartz and Antonio Delgado
(Buy them a tea kettle.)

Sponsored

The Case:
– This couple met at Harvard Law School. The bride graduated from Georgetown; the groom went to Colgate. Antonio also has a master’s in philosophy and political science from Oxford, where he was a Rhodes Scholar.
– Lacey works for Truth Aid, which “produces films and performs educational outreach on social issues.” She’s also a director of outreach for Be’chol Lashon, a group dedicated to fostering racial and ethnic diversity among Jews (from its website: “New blood brings new life and new excitement”).
– As for Antonio, from 2002 to 2009 he was a hip-hop performer known as “AD The Voice.” According to this article in the hip hop press:

A.D. the VOICE has committed his life to Hip Hop culture and its potential for social transformation. He has done so in spite of the six-figure offers he received from three different law firms upon graduating from the most elite academic institutions in the world . . . .

Looks like hip-hop culture wasn’t as committed to Antonio as he was to it. The NYT says he’s now keeping it real as an associate at Akin Gump.

The Case Against:
– Apparently racially and ethnically diverse Jewsish-ness means getting married by a Baptist minister. (On a similarly interreligious note, the NYT tells us that the huppah is quickly becoming the rage among the goyim.)

Trisha Anderson and Charles Newman
(Buy them a toaster.)

Sponsored

The Case:
– This two-JD couple weds the exalted Ivy League to the scrappy ACC. She’s Yale/Harvard; he’s Duke/UVA. The lovebirds are also running in some high-powered Washington legal circles. Tricia is currently a senior counsel to Deputy Attorney General James M. Cole at Justice, and Charles works at the White House as a deputy legal adviser to the National Security Council.
– Trisha clerked for Sixth Circuit superstar Jeff Sutton and was one of Justice Elena Kagan’s inaugural clerks last year. Swoon!

The Case Against:
– No picture. Just imagine two incredibly attractive, prestigious people looking radiantly happy and pleased with themselves.

Cate Edwards and Trevor Upham
(Donate to the Elizabeth Edwards Foundation.)

The Case:
– Cate Edwards is a daughter of former Senator and Democratic presidential candidate John Edwards and, according to speculation, is likely the late Elizabeth Edwards’s only living genetic offspring. A graduate of Harvard Law School, she was at one time an associate at plaintiffs’ firm Sanford Wittels & Heisler and is now president of the Elizabeth Edwards Foundation.
– Trevor, who “was raised in a Republican family,” is a surgical fellow at Georgetown University Hospital. He and Cate met in 2002 when they were both undergraduates at Princeton. They broke up for two years before reuniting in 2006.
– Cate penned a lovely essay on her mother not long after her death. What’s always struck us about Elizabeth Edwards’s story is that the greatest tragedy of her too-short life wasn’t John Kerry’s loss in the 2004 election; it wasn’t her two-faced husband’s tawdry, humiliating, illegitimate-child-producing affair; it wasn’t even dying of cancer before she could see her children grow up. It was, one suspects, the death of her teenage son in a car accident in 1996. Sounds like her daughter inherited her grit and graciousness. We hope Cate’s path through life is easier than her mother’s.

The Case Against:
– Elizabeth’s cad of a husband (she was in the process of divorcing him when she died) currently awaits trial on six felony charges of violating multiple federal campaign contribution laws. Cate has been loyal to her dad, and it’s hard to fault her for that. But OMG, what a ghastly hypocrite that man turned out to be.

The Verdict:
Rhodes scholar, SCOTUS clerk, or thriving daughter of famous disgraced politician? We couldn’t possibly make a choice! All are equally awesome in our book. We’ll resume picking winners when we have less uniformly stupendously contestants — which promises to be soon, unfortunately.

The Rest of the Best:
Marcie Graham and Yahonnes Cleary (2, YLS, Paul Weiss)
Kim Vu and Nathan Dau (2, Columbia, Michigan, Simpson Thacher, Sidley)
Talia Rosenberg and David Kaden (Yale)
Diana Reiter and Sean Mersten (2, Yale, Fordham, Jones Day)
May Chiang and Owen Conroy (2, Georgetown, Columbia, Wiley Rein, Jones Day)
Francesca Gessner and Steven DeSipio (Stanford)
Kimberley Morris and Chad Rosen (Stanford)
Natalia Cortez and Kevin Burdette (Michigan, Columbia, Debevoise)
Gabriella Skirnick and Brian Blais (2, Harvard)
Thomasin Franken and Brody Greenwald (Chicago, White & Case)
Evan Wolfson and Cheng He (Harvard, Freedom to Marry)
Marisa Van Saanen and David Murray (Yale, Skadden)
Sarah Maltzman and Neil Shah (Harvard)
Victoria Anne Bonney and Joseph Kearns Goodwin (Harvard)
Pamela Simpson and Kevin Nichols (Georgetown)
Allison Levine and Michael Stillman (Penn, Mayer Brown, Wachtell, TGIFridays)
Anna Handzlik and Jordan Sekulow (Regent)
Miki Litmanovitz and Jacob Heller (Stanford, Ropes & Gray)
Ann-Elizabeth Ostrager and Jon Daniels (2, NYU, S&C, Ropes & Gray, Simpson Thacher, Coudert)
Hannah Foster and Jack Eaves (Harvard, Navy)
Lauren Thompson and Geoffrey Starks (2, Yale, Columbia, Williams & Connolly)
Deborah Batts and Gwen Zornberg (Article III judge (S.D.N.Y.), Harvard)
Daniela Weber and Benjamin Tisch (NYU, Skadden)

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