There are only two weeks remaining before New Year’s Eve. That means that my small-firm singles only have a short window to secure their New Year’s Eve date. And according to our survey, none of you will be working on the holiday, so you better get your act together.
Luckily for you, I am an expert at finding love. If you can believe it, this skill outshines my genius at doling out small-firm advice. And since I write under a pseudonym, none of you know that I am a 46-year-old spinster who has eggs in the freezer. Oh, well I guess you do now, but let’s get on with my tips for a successful small-firm seduction….
Continue reading “Size Matters: Small-Firm Love in the Afternoon”
"My date got leid," says Sexy Screech.
Since the dates in D.C. have been a little more exciting than those in Chicago, I decided to spoil you with one last set-up in the nation’s capital. I brought in a pinch hitter for this one. After a “disarmingly feisty and unabashedly vivacious” female lawyer shot down the frat boy I set her up with, she asked to be set up with someone more her type, “aka really hot, quirky, and a commitment-phobic womanizer.” Pinch Hitter emailed me, saying he fit the profile.
Feist-Master said she was up for round two, but then disappeared off of the face of the earth email. So I decided to pull a switcheroo, pairing the quirky commitment-phobe with another of the many single female lawyers in D.C. I chose a hot, young T-14 grad at a Biglaw firm, who self-described as “optimistic, spontaneous, and active,” and said she would be a journalist if not a lawyer. The two legal eagles both sounded like thrill-seekers to me, so I sent them to The Russia House after work on a Friday and hoped for an epic night.
Epicness ensued. This is the kind of first date story that Wannabe Lara Logan will be able to milk for years…
Continue reading “Courtship Connection: If At First You Don’t Succeed, Try to Get Her Wasted”
At this point in the Courtship Connection Chicago series, I’m shocked that Chicago made it to the Final Four for coolest city for lawyers. I have to assume that those voting weren’t taking the dating scene into consideration. Perhaps Above the Law could start a fund to transplant Big League from D.C. to Chicago, so that she could train her colleagues in how to have an exciting first date. (Step 1: Drink rye whiskey. Step 2: Visit a strip club.) My Chicago daters keep going on “pleasant” dates with “good conversation.” Descriptors like “nice guy” abound in their write-ups. Why do all have to be so darn… Midwestern?
Inspired by ExRated.co, moving forward, I’m going to force nicely ask lawyers in the Windy City to rate their dates (out of five stars), and list their legal eagle match’s best and worst qualities. Should the date not lead to a bedding, it can at least lead to a bettering.
The latest Chicago pairing involved two lawyers in their 20s. Asked why he agreed to be set up by a random legal blogger, our male lawyer, who described himself as “kinetic, adventurous, and faux-angsty,” said, “regardless of the outcome, it’ll probably be a good story, which is generally the important thing.” He asked to be set up with someone “outgoing and hilarious.” Our female lawyer volunteered that she has “HUGE brains.” That seemed like a decent match.
It wasn’t. Emo Lawyer thinks it’s because Mars Attacks didn’t drink enough. Meanwhile, she explained why: she couldn’t stand a second round with him….
Continue reading “Courtship Connection: Please Try To Be Less Boring”
Happy Tuesday, Above the Law readers. I hope you had a lovely weekend, spent staring deeply into someone’s eyes over a candlelight dinner, or rubbing up against a hard-bodied young thing on a dance floor, or fighting the cold by cuddling on the couch, or — if you live in Florida — doing all those things and more with your favorite barnyard animal for the very last time (legally).
If you had a romance-free weekend, do not despair. Dating sucks sometimes — especially when it’s a date set up by a legal blogger with no particular aptitude for matchmaking. Last week, I thought I had actually done a decent job. I sent two Washington, D.C. lawyers out to Eighteenth Street Lounge on a Thursday night. Halfway through the date, the dude sent me an email, “Going really well so far.”
“I finally have one that’s going well,” I enthused to my boyfriend. “Doubtful,” he responded. “If he’s excited enough to send a mid-date email, that probably means you set him up with someone who’s totally out of his league.”
I should mention that one of the things that I like in a partner is their being slightly more perceptive than me….
Continue reading “Courtship Connections: Out Of His League”
Sadly, the percentage of Courtship Connection blind dates that lead to second dates is far lower than the percentage of ladies at One First Street, though it’s higher than the ratio of Supreme females to Supreme males dating back to the Court’s beginnings. Barely.
One of the couplings that did beat the odds included two New York lawyers paired because of their shared love of My Cousin Vinny. Seeing that two Chicago early-twenty-somethings had named Vincent Gambini as their fave legal fictional character, I sent these two yutes out on a date, hoping to replicate that success.
She self-described as a “cute fun firecracker” looking for a “hilarious (like really ridiculously funny), goal-oriented, and tall” legal dude. He said he was a “gunner w/sense of humor” whose type is “good-looking, smart, intense but funny.”
Firecrackers + gunners should make for a fiery night, right?
Continue reading “Courtship Connection Chitown: Hush, Puppies”
Courtship Connection blew into the Windy City on the tail end of the summer. (You can still sign up here, single Chicagoans.) This week marks the city’s first two Courtship dates. One couple will go out tonight (good luck!). I’m hoping they have a better time than the two lawyers who met each other in front of a closed restaurant on Monday night.
The two Biglaw associates said there wasn’t “a spark.” Instead of a spark, there was a big height difference. It’s hard out there for the tall lady lawyers….
Continue reading “Courtship Connection Chitown: Nothing To Feel Guilty About”
Chi-Town Courtship Connection
There are many kinds of journalism: investigative, advocacy, tabloid, service… Okay, there are four kinds of journalism we can currently think of. Above the Law’s Courtship Connection is in the service journalism camp. It’s our attempt to help over-worked, under-socialized, but ultimately lovable legal types, both lawyers and law students, to find romance. Or, failing that, inform them through a candid appraisal of a blind first date how they’re going about it all wrong.
So far, we’ve set up a Big Apple bushel’s worth of legal types in the city that never sleeps, and we’ve brought about quite a few political alliances in the nation’s capital. The third season of this series is debuting in Chicago, per readers’ choice.
If the Windy City has left you cold and lonely, and you’re willing and able to put your love life in ATL’s hands, I’ll do my best to set you up with a fellow legal eagle who doesn’t seem like a completely awful human being. If you’ve read past columns, you should know that I’m setting that bar low for a reason.
The survey, plus advice on how to prepare for a blind first date, after the jump…
Continue reading “Chicago Singles, Watch Out Get Excited: Here Comes ATL Courtship Connection!”
Anyone who has spent a swampy June/July/August in D.C. knows that it’s not the ideal setting for a sizzling summer romance. So it is time to shift locations for the Courtship Connection, Above the Law’s dating service for legal eagles.
Given my miserable less-than-perfect matchmaking track record, I was surprised by the number of emails from single lawyers and law students begging for Courtship to come to their city. I guess desperate times call for really desperate measures?
Since the only pleasure Courtship Connection tends to bring is to the readers, we shall let you choose the next city. Which metropolis of lawyers offers the greatest potential for throw-downs, of both the clashing and clicking variety? After the jump, you can vote for one of the nominees — Atlanta, Montreal, Miami, L.A., San Francisco, Chicago, Dallas, or Orange County, CA — and hear about the latest D.C. “cage match” of a date….
Continue reading “Courtship Connection: City Voting and Opposites Attracting”
In an ideal world, every Courtship Connection would start with tequila shots and end with tongue-twisting. But given that we’re working with careful and risk-averse lawyer types, historically our participants have tended to put a damper on the sparks. And not just the romantic kind.
If there’s no chemistry, the next best option is brutal honesty about why that was. It’s rare to actually tell someone why a date was mediocre. It’s much easier just not to call afterward (or not to return a call, if the lack of chemistry wasn’t mutual). But these aren’t normal dates –- these are blind dates set up by a legal blog that involve anonymous, public reviews. If there are no sparks, ATL readers expect some snark. No one benefits from a “blah blah, x was a nice person, but we didn’t click” review. Readers get bored, and your disappointing date doesn’t learn anything about why he or she fails at first impressions. She seemed too desperate for a free meal? Note it. He’s a chatty Kathy? Be catty about it. Her exhaustion was a turn-off? Let us know. His ordering fancy French cocktails was unmanly? Emasculation notation, please.
In other words, Courtship Connection is supposed to be what happens when daters stop being polite, and start getting real. Think of your blind date as a legal memo and yourself as the partner reviewing it for flaws and fallacies before submitting it to the court. Let’s read between the lines and figure out why two recent dates fizzled instead of sizzled…
Continue reading “Two Courtship Connections, Zero Chemistry”
I spent last week with a bunch of journos working from a beach house in the Outer Banks. I set my computer up in the house’s crow nest, blogging with a view of the ocean and a cool sea breeze. “Lunch hour” was spent playing in the waves. At night, we would make frozen drinks (summer cocktail recommendation: Jameson M&M milkshakes) and sit beneath the stars debating whether or not Anthony Weiner was cocky enough to send out that Twitter pic. This is perfect, I thought to myself.
But then late Tuesday night, it got even better, as I got to throw a little vicarious pleasure into the mix. At 10:10 p.m., my Droid buzzed with an email from a Courtship Connection couple I had sent to the Black Rooster pub earlier that night: “Full recap from us tomorrow but we have been making out all over Dupont!”
As regular readers know, that’s a rarity in this series. So what was it about this pairing that awakened the lawyers’ libidos?
Continue reading “Courtship Connection: Very Public Displays of Affection”
The Courtship Connection has been on hiatus since the infamous night of the melon-baller. We are back with a vengeance now. We’re doing a last sweep of D.C.’s single lawyers and then moving on to a new town. We’ll let you vote on which lucky city and its lawyers get to be subjected to my questionable matchmaking attempts.
First, we need candidates. Send suggestions for the next Courtship city to tips@abovethelaw.com. We’ll then let you vote. Don’t worry: Miami, L.A., San Francisco, Chicago and Dallas are already on the candidate list.
Now on to news of our latest victims match. I brought a previous candidate off the bench for this one, as I’m short on men (and lesbians — D.C.’s problem is that it has too many single ladies, and not enough of them like the other single ladies). Do you remember the guy who refused to get lost in his date’s brown eyes? Sex-starved but with high standards for chemistry. He agreed to go out on another blind date, but had a request: he wanted his match to be from the T14, even though he is not a grad of the upper echelon of law schools himself. I granted his wish.
Was prestige all that was needed to set his loins afire?
Continue reading “Courtship Connection: Is Prestige an Aphrodisiac?”
I’ve only been on one blind date in my life. Arranged by a journo friend, it was actually more like a sneak-peek date, since the suitor and I Facebook-friended and g-chatted prior to getting drinks for the first time.
My Courtship Connection participants are not so lucky. Their dates are completely blind — they don’t even know one another’s names prior to meeting. All they know is that they’re going to be meeting up with a lawyer or law student. I’m still in mild disbelief that risk-averse legal types are willing to participate, but I suppose the risk of being partner-less in perpetuity is greater than that of a single, potentially-horrific date.
So, how do you best set the tone for such a night? I always ask participants to wear or bring something distinctive so they can find one another. I recently paired a do-gooder attorney with a legal academic; the two seemed like hipster types to me, but I was hesitant about sending them all the way to H St. NE, so instead I chose The Passenger for their rendezvous. Our self-described “cheery, active, irreverent” lady lawyer said she’d be “wearing high heels and carrying a cantaloupe.”
So guess what our “hippie economist” brought? Hint: it’s phallic….
Continue reading “Courtship Connection: If Your Date’s Bringing a Cantaloupe…”
What’s more hopeless than sending two lawyers out on a blind date and hoping they hit it off? Answer: Sending thirty-something lawyers out on a blind date and hoping they hit off.
It’s safe to assume that a person (and especially a woman) still single in their 30s is a picky type. As Elie recently lectured a trio of spinsters +30 single ladies, “You could have gotten married at some point in your 20s and you chose not to. There’s not something wrong with the guys you date; there’s something wrong with you.” It’s possible that Elie learned all that he knows about women from Lori Gottlieb.
Despite odds being stacked against me, I decided to match up two D.C. lawyers in their mid 30s. They have different political stripes, but both named Atticus Finch as their favorite legal character, and would gladly give up gavels for spatulas. Asked for three words about themselves, he said he was a “funny nerdy cultured chef” and she said she was a “city-dwelling chef/policy-wonk.” They sounded like they should be able to come up with a recipe for romance…
Continue reading “Courtship Connection: Likes – Cooking; Dislikes – Kissing”
A couple of participants played Courtship Connection musical chairs
At the heart of our Courtship Connection series is the premise that lawyers play well together in romantic relationships. Hopefully the story earlier this week of an engagement between two lawyers going horribly wrong won’t discourage future participants from taking on a fellow lawyer as a playmate.
Previous Courtship participants aren’t discouraged, at least. Perhaps you remember the whiskey-swigging law student who was “prettier/kinder/smarter” than the Blue Moon-drinking fellow student I paired her with? In her write-up, she expressed an interest in the “nice, smart, and talkative” Big Gov lawyer who wasn’t swept off his feet by a fellow conservative attorney over dim sum on Valentine’s Day. She was up for “steamed buns” but, sadly, he wasn’t.
Our picky Elephant says that “a friend” alerted him to whiskey girl’s call to action. He emailed me to say he was up for it, so I sent them out to The Tabard Inn in Dupont Circle. He wound up getting that action. At least, I think he did…
Continue reading “Courtship Connection: Sloppy Seconds”
This installation of the Courtship Connection has some important advice for blind daters. If you are feeling sick or if you are feeling exhausted, or if you are suffering from those two conditions combined, you should just reschedule.
(Last week, one of our participants was sniffly on her date and still managed to make a love connection, but we should all think of that as the exception and not the rule.)
I had high hopes for these two do-gooder lawyers in their late 20s, who named First Amendment law and environmental law as their favorite classes in law school, respectively — and who managed to translate their noble passions into professional gigs. Both Donkeys — d’uh — he said that if he weren’t a lawyer, he’d be a “singer for an unsuccessful band,” and she said she’d be a “yoga teacher, park ranger, and world traveling vagabond.”
Such a precious pairing! I sent them to Adams Morgan’s Tryst on a Tuesday evening to drink environmentally-sustainable coffee and chat about how to keep Obama in office come 2012. She was enchanted and even went so far as to send a text post-date. Unfortunately, that text went ignored. Here’s why…
Continue reading “Courtship Connection: Get Some Sleep Prior To A First Date”
Well, well, well. After a string of miserable failures unsuccessful matches, I’ve finally introduced two lawyers in Washington, D.C. who both filed motions with me for a second date.
So how’d I do it? Throwing a blonde lawyer into the mix helped…
Continue reading “Courtship Connection: Gentlemen Bros Prefer Blondes”
A law student said this picture best captured the feeling of his date
Last week, we had two more blind dates in the swampy city: a pair of lawyers and a pair of law students.
Both dates left me feeling that I really need to start recruiting more candidates from outside of the legal field. (Note to Lat and Elie: Could you get your colleagues to send some Dealbreaker and Fashionista readers my way?)
The late 20s-early 30s lawyers I sent out both went to school in Boston, both described themselves as Dem-GOP mixes (she said she was a hybrid, he ‘fessed up to being a libertarian), and both named Scalia as their man at One First Street. Asked to describe themselves in three words, she gave me an alliterative four — “sweet, sarcastic, smart, social” — and he used slashes with abandon — “Spunky/energetic, funny, old school/1950s-ish, conservative.”
I sent them to Proof wine bar on a Tuesday night. Here’s what happened next….
Continue reading “Courtship Connection: Get Lost in Those Brown Eyes, Please”
Two dates, including one on Valentine's Day, fell flat.
Given the track record of Above the Law’s lawyer-matchmaking series, some may think we should change the name of the series to the Courtship Misconnection.
In one of our first Washington, D.C. couplings, on Superbowl Sunday, a male lawyer fumbled his date with a “disarmingly feisty and unabashedly vivacious” female associate. (Beware the women who self-describe as “feisty,” says Slate.) Undeterred, I’ve continued to set up dates in the nation’s capital.
I sent two Biglaw types to Solly’s on U Street last week — a late 20s female Donkey who wanted a trunk and an early-thirties male Elephant who requested ass. If not a lawyer, she said she’d be a cage fighter, and he said he’d be a writer. I thought I had an excellent “opposites attract” formula. I was wrong.
She described the date as a “pretty lackluster affair” and he said no “love connection was made.” “You are no Patti Stanger,” female Donkey wrote me (a little bitterly). Boring dates may be even worse than disastrous ones.
Luckily, the other two dates recounted here were more entertaining. One, because it was a blind date on Valentine’s Day, and the other because it’s our first occurrence of Courtship Connection leading to a lawyer’s pants being torn off…
Continue reading “Courtship Connection: One Hit, Two Misses”
* The anatomy of Courtship Connections. Kash explains why it’s so difficult to set lawyers up with each other. [Forbes]
* Alan Dershowitz and Julian Assange make a love connection. [Politico]
* Does compassion really have any place in the law? [Underdog]
* Many of the lonely among you will be drinking heavily tonight. That’s okay. We’ll deal with your alcoholism once Hallmark leaves you alone. [Lawyerist]
* Let’s hope ABA President-Elect Nominee Laurel Bellows shows law students some love. [ABA Journal]
* No love for social media experts in this week’s Blawg Review. [My Law License via Blawg Review]
* And in case you missed it, the Saturday Night Live cast tips us off on a hot new legal practice area — after the jump….
Continue reading “Non-Sequiturs: 02.14.11″
Only one person had a good time on this date. (Stock photo.)
With Valentine’s Day swiftly approaching, now seems like a great to time to relaunch ATL’s Courtship Connection — our well-intentioned but only sporadically successful program for hooking up our single legal-eagle readers.
Like the Real World, the series is back and in a new city. Judging from the date we’ll now recount, our matchmaking adventures in D.C may be as disappointing as the eight strangers MTV picked to live in a Dupont Circle house last year. (But hey, dating through Above The Law has got to turn out better than dating through Craigslist in D.C.)
This was an East Coast (him) meets West Coast (her) match. Both were of the politically-liberal persuasion. I matched these two top law grads in the 25-35 age range in part because I thought they would look good together. Both are hotties. When asked to describe themselves in three words, neither could stick to the word limit. He said he was a “brainy, preppy reformed frat-guy” and she said she was “disarmingly feisty and unabashedly vivacious.”
I should not have been so superficial. While he enjoyed her vivacity, she enjoyed… writing up a feisty recap of the date….
Continue reading “Courtship Connection: A Rocky Start in Washington, D.C.”
