A liveblog of what should be a most interesting debate on Prop 8 and gay marriage — taking place at the 2010 National Lawyers Convention of the Federalist Society, and pitting Professor William Eskridge against Professor Richard Epstein — after the jump.
Continue reading “Proposition 8 Violates the Fourteenth Amendment: A Debate”
Breaking: Scion of fatuous family which contributes absolutely nothing to society chooses a mate.
Sorry, if we were living in Britain, that sentence would have read “Prince William to wed Catherine (Don’t call me Kate) Middleton.”
Thank you, George Washington, for saving me from the horror of actually having to care about the British Royal Family. Obsessing over the Britney Spears is much more respectable. At least she can dance.
But there is an interesting wrinkle to the massive waste of time, money, and ink about to be spent on the royal nuptials. For the first time, U.K. laws would appear to hold pre-nuptial agreements enforceable. Which leads to the obvious questions: should the royal couple sign a prenup?
I think the answer is yes, and not to protect the crown jewels from a spurned future Catherine. See, it turns out that Kate Middleton is a “commoner” only in the insulting, archaic, British sense of the word….
Our last installment of the Wedding Watch was almost unbearably non-elite, but we’re happy to announce that the Times weddings section has bounced back. Three prestigious law firms beautify our wedding update today: Jenner & Block, Boies Schiller, and the ever-fabulous Skadden Arps. And two of our grooms (there are four) are partners!
Here are our lucky finalists:
DeVere Kutscher and Duane Pozza Jr. (Stanford, Jenner)
Esther Lederman and Scott Gant (Harvard, Boies Schiller)
Elana Bernstein and Geoffrey Bauer (UPenn, Skadden)
You can read much more about these couples, plus check out our round-up of all the legal nuptials, after the jump.
Continue reading “Legal Eagle Wedding Watch: Thunder in the Night”
October is typically a prime wedding month, yet we’ve seen a precipitous and unaccountable prestige drop-off in the NYT over the past couple of weeks. You know it’s lean times when the only Ivy in the batch is UPenn, which has a big-time football program and therefore can’t be academically serious.
Also, witness this rare occurrence: a groom so unprestigious that the NYT can’t even bring itself to befoul its pages with his educational credentials! (LEWW found them here.)
But never fear, we’ve managed to find some wheat among the chaff:
More on these couples, plus our comprehensive list of all the legal-eagle weddings, after the jump.
Continue reading “Legal Eagle Wedding Watch: Firm Yet Supple”
If you want to marry a shoe, I’ll marry you.
– Jimmy McMillan, running for governor of New York as the candidate of the Rent Is Too Damn High Party.
(Watch this awesome video clip of McMillan from last night’s debate.)
First, a couple of notable non-legal nuptials: Kelly McGillis (of Top Gun and Witness) married her long-time girlfriend. Short ceremony, long write-up.
There’s also perhaps the most painfully stylish wedding we’ve ever come across. The bride is the daughter of modernist architect Richard Meier, who keeps his homes “very relaxed and casual but everything has to be perfect” — “[e]ven the Snapple bottles are lined up perfectly in the pantry.” (Oh . . . so not really relaxed and casual at all.) Watch the slideshow of the uber-posh wedding, and take note of those origami flowers; you’ll be seeing poorly executed versions in weddings near you for the next few years.
Now, our legal eagle couples. Here are the finalists:
1. Nicole Moen and Michael Skoglund
Marvel at these couples’ résumés, after the jump.
We’ve decided to tweak the format of Legal Eagle Wedding Watch a bit. Beginning today, we’ll be bringing you all the lawyer weddings featured in the New York Times.
This, admittedly, is the kind of everyone’s-a-winner feel-goodism that we normally abhor. Alas, to be frank, we’re sick of the constant death threats from couples who don’t make our column. Don’t worry — we’ll keep the focus on our brilliant featured couples, as always. But starting with today’s installment, you’ll also be able to check out the honorable mentions (and others) at the end of each post.
Also, congratulations to Elena Lalli and Guillermo Coronado, who edged out Caroline Lopez and Nicholas Miranda in our last reader poll for Couple of the Week.
This week’s featured couples are:
1. Meredith Osborn and Christiaan Highsmith
More about these couples — and a list of all the NYT’s recent legal eagle matings — after the jump.
Continue reading “Legal Eagle Wedding Watch: Spreading the Love”
Before we go hard-core with the lawyerly nuptials, we must mention a couple of recent Vows columns that are worth a look. First, this offbeat pair had three children together before finally deciding, at the ages of 63 and 39, to tie the knot. And the geriatric groom sounds way too horny: “I lusted after Nina, and still do, in a very primal way.” Yuck. If you’re over 40 and not John Slattery, Pierce Brosnan, or Captain Jean-Luc Picard, we don’t want to hear about your primal lust.
Then there’s this uncomfortable write-up, in which the couple cheerfully airs a story that makes the groom sound like a massive cad at best (he “shacked up” with someone else while she was studying abroad and failed to mention that detail in the cheesy love letters he was sending her). “I’m still pretty incredulous that she’s with me,” says the wannabe-player groom. So are we.
On to this week’s slate of newlyweds, which we believe sets a new record for number of Harvard and Yale degrees:
1. Anne Catherine Savage and Zachary Podolsky
2. Elena Lalli and Guillermo Coronado
Read more about these couples — and vote for your favorite — after the jump.
Judge Sidney Thomas
The three-judge motions panel — consisting of Judges Edward Leavy, Michael Daly Hawkins, and Sidney Thomas — has issued a stay pending appeal in Perry v. Schwarzenegger, the case in which Judge Vaughn Walker (N.D. Cal.) struck down Proposition 8′s ban on gay marriage in California.
More about the ruling and a link to the order, after the jump.
When we filed our last column, we were full of anticipation over Chelsea Clinton’s then-upcoming wedding. And the New York Times did not let us down with its wall-to-wall coverage of the big day. In case you missed it, you can read the NYT on Chelsea’s dress, Chelsea’s wedding planner, the secrecy, the confidentiality agreements, the feeding frenzy, the frustration of the fashion media, the interfaith angle, the rabbi’s spiritual journey, and the reaction in the town of Rhinebeck. Oh, and there’s a slideshow.
And now, on to this week’s couples (we’re including one standout from mid-July that we’d missed):
1. Emma Mittelstaedt and James Burnham
Read all about these couples and their exploits, after the jump.
A college graduate without student loan debt is akin to reading a kind quote about Kim Kardashian in a tabloid—it’s rare.
In the past eight years, student loan debt has nearly tripled to a whopping $1.1 trillion, and in the past 10 years, the percentage of 25-year-olds with such debt has risen from 25% to 43%
It’s gotten so bad, in fact, that New York Fed economists warned last month that the burden of student debt could stilt consumer spending by twentysomethings, as well as further hamper the recovery of the housing market and economy.
To get a better idea of what massive student loan debt (we’re talking over $100,000 massive) looks like, we talked to an attorney who graduated with a large student loan debt. We also consulted LearnVest Planning Services CFP® Katie Brewer to see just how their repayment plans stack up.
S. Fischer, 36, Attorney
Graduated: 2001
How Much I Borrowed: $100,000
What I Still Owe: $45,000
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Ed. note: The Asia Chronicles column is authored by Kinney Recruiting. Kinney has made more placements of U.S. associates, counsels and partners in Asia than any other recruiting firm in each of the past six years. You can reach them by email: asia@kinneyrecruiting.com.
Deal flow has clearly picked recently up for most US associates, counsels and partners in Hong Kong/China and Singapore. We are on the phone with a lot of these folks on a daily basis, many of whom we have known for years. Further, the head of our Asia team, Evan Jowers, and Kinney’s founder and president, Robert Kinney, frequently meet in person with leading US partners in Asia to assess their needs and keep on top of the inside scoop at as many firms as possible. The need for legal recruiting help in Asia from experienced recruiters appears to be live and well. In March, Evan and Robert were in Beijing at such meetings, in April, Evan was in Hong Kong, and for half of June Evan will be in Shanghai and Hong Kong. Thus its pretty easy for us to tell when there has been an across-the-market pick up in capital markets and corporate work.
On an average day in Asia when Evan and Robert visit firms, they typically have 5 to 9 meetings a day, mostly with US partners in the market. The reason they have these meetings is not simply because Kinney makes a lot of US attorney placements in Asia and that a particular firm may have openings; instead these are just visits with friends. After years of working together as business partners, the folks at Kinney are actually these peoples’ friends. The firms Kinney work closely with in Asia (which is just about every law firm – call us if you want to know the one firm in the world we will never place anyone with again, ever, and why) look forward to the visits, or at least act like they do. After seven years in the market, many of the client partners are former associate candidates. Also, these US partners see Kinney as a very good source of market information as well, because they know how deep their contacts are in the market and how frequently they are speaking to counterparts at peer firms.
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