Achievement and Reasonable Pride

I'm just getting ready for my trip to Israel to give some talks at Bar-Ilan, Tel-Aviv and Haifa.  By coincidence, Orly and Rob Howse will also be there, so maybe we'll have a Prawfs in Israel get-together... Mom, in case you're interested, you can see the abstract of the piece I'm presenting, Retributive Damages, up on my SSRN page.

As I've been getting ready, I got to thinking: what achievements in life can one justifiably gloat over without feeling stupid? And given today's crowded wedding pages in the NYT styles section, with lots of friends (congrats Edwin, Avery, Liz, and Frannie!), I realized, match-making is an unvarnished good in which everyone should delight.  So with that in mind, look at the glorious couple Wendi and I helped bring together, and whose magical wedding we celebrated last weekend.  Ever since we've made this match, and the accidental one I made with Adam and Steve in college, we've been emboldened to meddle in the lives of our willing friends. After all, under Jewish tradition, if you make 3 matches, you get a direct ticket to Heaven.  (Btw, the balance of this post is so completely not law-related (except that the bride is a lawyer and the daughter of 2 generations of judges) that you shouldn't bother continuing if that's a hangup of yours. And if you're wondering why on earth I'm posting what follows, it's because the NYT sadly didn't reprint it, and many Prawfs readers are friends or fans of the bride and groom.) Laurie Lin, please take note of this injustice for LEWW.

Abigail Brett Krauser was married last Sunday to Zachary Loren Shrier at the Sixth and I Historic Synagogue in Washington, D.C.. Rabbi Stephen Weil of Beth Jacob Congregation of Beverly Hills, CA, officiated.

The bride is a litigation and white-collar criminal defense associate at the L.A.-based law firm, Irell & Manella, L.L.P.  She was, until July, a law clerk to the Honorable Judith W. Rogers on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit.  She graduated summa cum laude from Columbia University.  Upon graduation she received Columbia's Euretta J. Kellett Fellowship to Oxford University, from which she received a B.Phil. in philosophy in 2002.  Mrs. Shrier graduated from Yale Law School in 2005. Her parents are the Honorable Sherrie L. Krauser, a judge of the Circuit Court of Maryland, and the Honorable Peter B. Krauser, a judge of the Maryland Court of Special Appeals and former chairman of the Maryland Democratic Party—both of College Park, Maryland.  She is the granddaughter of the Honorable Bess Lavine, retired judge of the District Court of Maryland; Judge Lavine was one of the first female elected officials in Maryland history.

The groom is a portfolio manager at Shrier Wealth Management, a California-based investment firm he founded and manages with his father, Steven Shrier.  The groom graduated with membership in Phi Beta Kappa from Harvard College in 1999.  From 1999-2001, he worked as a business analyst at McKinsey & Company in New York.  Mr. Shrier is also a screenwriter and playwright.  In 2003, his play, "So Fine Dining," was featured in the Boston Theater Marathon, and his play "Recess" was a finalist for the 2004 Heideman Award. The groom's mother, Debbie Shrier, is principal of the Yeshiva University of Los Angeles high school.