Legal Eagle Wedding Watch: Dispute Resolution

Well-credentialed lovebirds soar into the firmament of marriage.

Kudos to Jared Milrad and Nathan Johnson for parlaying a six-second appearance in Hillary Clinton’s campaign announcement video into nationwide media coverage and a lengthy wedding write-up in the New York Times.

They didn’t make our top three, though, because the information on Jared’s legal background is thin — and includes “a failed bar exam.” Yikes.

Here are the three high-powered couples who did make our finals list:

Allison Zimmer and Joshua Occhiogrosso-Schwartz

The Case:
– We begin with an alternate (and far better) ending to Knocked Up where Katherine Heigl raises the baby on her own and Seth Rogen marries Democratic National Committee Chair Debbie Wasserman Schultz.
– The bride, who was magna at Brown, has been working for an organization that manages charter schools. This fall she’ll begin studying for a JD at NYU.
– The groom graduated from Berkeley with high distinction and has a JD, cum laude, from NYU. He practices with Bronx Defenders, a nonprofit that gives free legal representation.

The Case Against:
– The bride is keeping her name. No kidding. Parents, this is what your daughters-in-law are going to do when you insist on hyphenating names like “Occhiogrosso.”

Ekene Obi-Okoye and Ifeanyi Ojukwu

Sponsored

The Case:
– This adorable pair met as undergraduates at Harvard. It’s hard to get more prestigious than Harvard, but they’ve both managed that with their graduate schools: the London School of Economics and Yale Law School for him, and Johns Hopkins Medical School for her.
– A rarity in these wedding announcements: The parents are all members of happy, non-rapacious professions (two doctors, a nurse, and a pharmacist).

The Case Against:
– While the bride finishes her medical studies, the groom will be an associate at Sullivan & Cromwell — in the firm’s London office. That’s intensely long-distance, especially given the fact that S&C has a DC office.

Ashley Harris and Jon Fougner
(Buy them a salad spinner.)

The Case:
– Another extremely well-credentialed set of lovebirds. This bride was magna at Brown and cum laude at Harvard. She works for JPMorgan Chase and helps disabled people in her spare time.
– The groom was summa at Yale, earned a JD from Yale Law School, and was a Fulbright Scholar in Norway. He founded and runs a software company that helps people solve disputes. (And if there’s a more stereotypical YLS-grad profile than that, we challenge you to find it.)

The Case Against:
– We like to play guess-the-officiant from looking at couples’ photos, and we confidently went with “Episcopal priest” for these two. The reality is less WASP-y, though far more prestigious: Judge Alex Kozinski of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit.

Sponsored

The Verdict:
Team Harris-Fougner wins this one based on their two JDs plus the fact that they actually have a Google-able wedding registry, which is getting increasingly rare. (That’s a bad thing, engaged people. Not only are you missing out on wedding swag; the world is losing a valuable metric by which to judge you.)

Congratulations and best wishes to all these impressive newlyweds!

UPDATE (8/11/2015, 2:00 p.m.): A tipster wrote in to share with us information about the celebrity guests at the Harris-Fougner nuptials:

Jon Fougner (YLS 2014) married Ashley Harris (HLS grad) at a power-packed wedding in Napa Valley. Judge Kozinski of the Ninth Circuit married the couple, and guests included Amy “Tiger Mom” Chua and husband Jed Rubenfeld, Rhodes scholar Daniel Clemens, up-and-coming finance star Daniel Simon, the former captain of Yale Law School’s competitive wine team, and the YLS grad recently shamed by public news sources for wearing a “f**k forever” t-shirt to the Yale Club of New York.

Honorable Mention:
Elizabeth Marren and Sean Barry (2, Fordham)
Jared Milrad and Nathan Johnson (Hillary)
Caroline Adler and Tristan Morales (O’Melveny, Virginia)
Christina Siliciano and Enrique Hernandez III (Harvard, Sullivan & Cromwell)
Kristin Perkins and Ezekiel Hill (Columbia, Goodwin Procter)
Andrea Spector and Joseph Mandelbaum (Harvard, Ropes & Gray)

The Rest:
Elaine Wong and Christian Littlejohn (Penn)
Sandra Bruno and Gustavo Licón (Tulane)
Jesse Horwitz and Mark Severs (Harvard)
Michelle Schackman and Jonathan Fayer (NYU, Paul Weiss)
Beverly Rich and George Ingersoll (USC)
Sandy Myers and Ames Grawert (NYU)


Laurie Lin is former DC 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 attention at leww.tips@abovethelaw.com.