Legal Eagle Wedding Watch: Inseparable

Three impressive couples; who deserves top honors?

In a world where “promposals” are an actual thing, it’s harder than ever to come up with a creative and memorable marriage proposal. This one, which involved putting the ring in a treasure chest, sinking it in the ocean, and then arranging a snorkeling adventure to “discover” it, ranks with the most elaborate we’ve seen.

That groom wasn’t a lawyer, so he had time for such shenanigans. The couples below may have not have glittering proposal stories, but their résumés are sparkly nonetheless.

Our featured newlyweds:

Keep reading for our analysis of these couples – and a chance to vote for your favorite.

Stephanie Schiffman and Brent Steele
(Buy them an ottoman.)
The Case:
– This week’s only two-JD couple got theirs from the University of Michigan (she was cum laude; he was magna). For undergrad, she was magna at Washington University and he was summa at the University of Missouri.
– True to their thoroughly Midwestern educational backgrounds, they’re both associates in Sidley’s Chicago office, she in real estate and he in corporate.
– They didn’t meet in law school, but rather when he was “recruiting” at Michigan for Sidley. If that sounds like the setup to a Biglaw porno, maybe it’s because your on-campus interviews, like LEWW’s, took place in hotel rooms.

The Case Against:
– The photo above is a classic example of what LEWW calls “the NYT head-mash.” That’s where the engagement photographer directs the couple to press their heads awkwardly together in order to capture the “prestige pic” (the eyebrows-aligned shot the paper requires for wedding submissions).

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Hannah Zornow and Benjamin Alter
(Buy them a sod pillow.)
The Case:
– See? Their eyebrows are on the same level, but they’re not doing the conjoined-twin thing. Their pose is a lot more natural. So are their eyebrows.
– There’s an insane amount of Yale in this write-up. The bride and groom met as Yale undergraduates (they both graduated magna), and the bride is now in medical school there. This fall, the groom will start at Yale Law School, where his classmates will call him “Bulldog Ben” and he’ll think it’s a compliment.
– But the Yale connection goes deeper yet. The bride’s father is Skadden super-partner David Zornow, founder of the firm’s white-collar defense practice and current head of litigation. He also happens to be a Yale Law grad and is a visiting lecturer there, teaching a class on white-collar criminal defense.

The Case Against:
– The person with the most interesting – and dare we say, societally useful – career in the write-up is the bride’s mother, who (though trained as an attorney) is the founding principal of Girls Prep Bronx Middle School, a charter school.

Kristin Farley and Wai Wong
(Buy them a blender.)
The Case:
– There’s the head-mash again. You can’t un-see it now, can you? But points for their perfect teeth.
– This bride went to Yale, has a master’s in teaching from the University of Louisville, and teaches seventh-grade science at a public middle school in DC.
– The groom went to Princeton and has a JD from the University of Virginia. He clerked for Judge Danny Boggs on the Sixth Circuit (also in Louisville) and is now an associate in Gibson Dunn’s DC office.

The Case Against:
– The groom is a total hottie, but this is a good example of why no one with a UVA degree should ever wear a bow tie. Yes, his has a non-offensive pattern and it’s jauntily askew. But once you know where he went to law school, the tie becomes nothing more than a Symbol of Douchery, and you start imagining the madras shorts he’s probably wearing below that blazer.

The Verdict:
We’re passing the buck to ATL readers on this one. Which couple do you think gets top honors?

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Honorable Mention:
Hal Brewster and Geoffrey Wetrosky (Georgetown, Paul Weiss)
Jessie duPont and James McDonald (Duke)
Ari Lipsky and David Nahmias (Boalt)

The Rest:
Beverly Baker and Thomas Jackson (Hofstra)
Ashley Silvers and Steven Shur (Rutgers)
Olga Urbieta and Chad Di Stefano (Chicago)
Grace Boone and Kenneth Louis (Rutgers)
Molly Ford and Collin Beck (NYU, Dechert)
April McHugh and Philip Arnold (Fordham, Proskauer)
Elizabeth Buckel and Georges Abikaram (Georgetown)
Sophie Buonomo and Patrick Duffy (Cardozo)


Laurie Lin is a former D.C. Biglaw associate now living in Charleston, West Virginia with her husband and sons. You can also find her on the Charleston Gazette-Mail op-ed page or West Virginia Public Broadcasting’s “Front Porch” podcast. Follow her on Twitter (@wvpundette) or send wedding-related tips to her at leww.tips@gmail.com.