Lions in Love: Columbia Law Couples

Dalia O. Blass ’99 and David W. Blass ’98 

When Dalia O. Blass ’99 was serving as executive editor of the Columbia Journal of Transnational Law during her 2L year, she reached out to the previous executive editor, David W. Blass ’98, for advice about a situation at the journal. They met for dinner to discuss it, and afterward, David, then a first-year associate at Davis Polk & Wardwell, asked her out for a “more personal than professional” dinner. “And, fortunately for me, she said ‘yes,’” David says.

They began dating, but there was a bump in the road ahead: Dalia would be leaving New York after graduation to work at Shearman & Sterling’s London office. “I’m Egyptian, and I wanted to do large-scale international transactional work,” she says. David (who grew up in Alabama) asked Davis Polk to transfer him to London. Instead, the firm sent him to its office in Frankfurt, Germany, because “my résumé stated that I spoke conversational German,” he says. “I tell all my junior associates, ‘Be careful what you put on your résumé!’”

Eventually, Davis Polk moved David to London, where he and Dalia got engaged. “But we did not want to have our wedding in London,” says Dalia. So they took a three-week tour of Italy to research wedding venues. “It remains one of the highlight trips of my lifetime,” says David.

They settled on Florence for their nuptials and had two wedding ceremonies: one, which paid homage to Dalia’s Egyptian heritage, at a Florentine villa; the other at Florence’s St. James Episcopal Church. The reception was held at the 13th century Villa Il Garofalo, which was once home to the family of the poet Dante Alighieri, author of the Divine Comedy.

Eventually, the Blasses returned to the United States, took jobs at the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), and settled outside Washington, D.C., where they raised their three children. At one point, they both worked in the SEC’s investment management division, and their offices were only a few feet apart. “We had lunch dates all the time,” says David. “I wish we could go back to that.”

They stayed at the SEC for about five years, left for other jobs, but both ended up back at the SEC a few years later. Today, Dalia is the senior investment management partner at Sullivan & Cromwell, and David is a partner at Simpson Thacher & Bartlett. “Dalia is a luminary in the asset management industry,” says David.  

Dalia is quick to pay back the compliment. “I’ve always considered David to be a mentor,” she says. “I would not have had the career I’ve had without his encouragement and counsel. And, of course, we wouldn’t be where we are—or together—if not for Columbia Law School.”

Gregory Lee ’90 LL.M. and Amanda Moretti ’91

Amanda Moretti ’91 was typing an outline in the Law School’s computer lab in November of her 2L year when she noticed Gregory Lee ’90 LL.M., who was staring blankly at the screen in front of him. “Do you know how to use this thing?” she asked him. “No, I don’t,” he said.

As Amanda tried to help him, she learned that he was an Australian lawyer who had clerked on Australia’s High Court and was a fellow at the Law School’s Center for Law & Economic Studies. She noticed the books in front of him were by Martin Heidegger, Joseph Conrad, and T. S. Eliot. “I thought, This is going to be some economics paper!” she says.

The next day, Amanda received a 20-page paper on language and philosophy with a note from Greg suggesting that she might like to read it and meet for coffee. “I told him I would not be able to read it until February,” she says. So Greg bided his time: “I figured I’d play the long game.” 

When they finally met for coffee, they discussed poetry, philosophy, and their shared interest in Elvis Presley. “I got her attention when I told her I was planning to visit Graceland,” says Greg, referring to Elvis’s home in Memphis, Tennessee.

At the end of that year, Greg had to return to his job in Melbourne. Once there, he persuaded his firm that it would be useful if he were licensed to practice in the U.S., so he returned to take the bar exam at the same time Amanda did. The day after the exam, he dropped off his résumé at two firms; a few days later, he had offers from both. Once he began working at Linklaters, he and Amanda began dating. “But corporate law was not for me,” says Greg, who switched to investment banking and spent the next 20 years at Goldman Sachs.

Amanda joined The Legal Aid Society as a trial lawyer. During her 20 years there, she did impact litigation with the organization’s Homeless Rights Project and as a special litigation attorney.

In 1997, they were married at the New York City Fire Museum in Lower Manhattan. “We’d been to kids’ birthday parties there, and we may have been their first wedding,” says Amanda. The judge who was to marry them arrived late, “so we had a long, long, long, cocktail party before the ceremony,” she says. “And then fried chicken and Australian beer after.”

Today, Amanda volunteers for immigrants’ rights groups and serves on the board of Coalition for the Homeless. Greg is a partner at Ardea, a boutique advisory firm for companies around the world. They have a son, Sam, 26, and a daughter, Esme, 24.

Philanthropy is increasingly important to them, including their support of the Law School. “Columbia provided me with the fellowships, and it was really generous of them to do that,” says Greg. “Giving to Columbia is a way to pay it forward and support a place that had so much impact for us.”

Jared Solomon ’11 and Katherine Solomon ’11 

Jared Solomon ’11 first eyed Katherine Solomon ’11 at the beginning of their freshman year at Hamilton College in 2004. “I thought she was cute,” Jared recalls. “I found out she was on the rugby team, so I thought I should join the men’s rugby team and, sure enough, that got me an introduction to Katherine. I courted her for two years, and we started dating in our junior year.”

Sports have always been part of their lives together—both personally and professionally. In addition to playing rugby, Jared played on Hamilton’s tennis team; Katherine was on the equestrian team. “But neither of us played golf,” says Katherine, alluding to the sport that has defined their careers for the past decade: The Solomons are two of the four founders of Five Iron Golf, a fast-growing chain of bar/restaurants with golf simulators, which they started in 2017.

It was not the career path they imagined when they applied to law school as college seniors; Katherine thought she would pursue environmental law, and Jared hoped to be a sports agent. They spent their 1L year at Indiana University Maurer School of Law. “We started looking for jobs, and nobody believed that these two East Coasters—I’m from Pennsylvania, and Katherine is from upstate New York—were ever going to stay in the Midwest,” says Jared.

They applied to schools in New York and both got into Columbia as 2Ls. “We had a little culture shock,” recalls Katherine. “We had never lived in New York City before.”

After graduation, Katherine clerked for two years at the Appellate Division of the New York State Supreme Court, Fourth Judicial Department, and Jared went to work trading equity options on Wall Street. “Working on Wall Street was a lot like playing poker, which was sort of my job that got us through college and law school,” he says.

They were married in 2014 at the Turning Stone Resort Casino in upstate New York, where they had their first date, at a Tim McGraw concert. The venue “had a special place in our hearts,” Jared says.

When they opened the first Five Iron Golf (so named because it was on Fifth Avenue in the Flatiron District), Jared was still working on Wall Street, and Katherine was an associate at Paul Hastings. Now, he is Five Iron Golf’s CEO, and she is the chief legal officer. The chain currently has 40 locations in the U.S. and abroad. 

The couple, who live with their two young children in Westchester County, New York, enjoy being partners in business and in life. “It’s fun to be a team working toward the same goal,” says Katherine. “We’re proud we get to do this together.”  

Samantha Soto ’10 and Zachary Soto ’10

Samantha Soto ’10 met Zac Soto ’10 at a Law School party the summer before their 2L year, which Zac was attending as a guest of his then-girlfriend. “We discovered that we would both be in the Child Advocacy Clinic that fall,” says Samantha, who was also dating someone at the time. “We talked about the clinic and both being undergraduate English majors.”

During the classroom component of the clinic, they sat next to each other and became friends. By the winter of their 2L year, they were both single and went on their first date at Rosa Mexicano across from Lincoln Center. “We learned that we both had an interest in hip-hop music, and I was impressed that Zac had written for The Source,” says Samantha, referring to the magazine about hip-hop music, culture, and politics.

As part of the clinic, they had 24-hour access to the clinic offices, which was an ideal place for quiet study. “It was our own private space and especially useful when we were preparing for finals,” says Zac. “We spent a lot of time together there.”

By the beginning of their 3L year, Samantha and Zac were engaged, and they got an apartment together in Manhattan after graduation. She went to work at Willkie Farr & Gallagher, and he started at the now-defunct Dewey & LeBoeuf. The firms happened to be located in Manhattan office buildings that connected back-to-back. “We would meet up for coffee during the day in the concourse below ground,” says Samantha.

If they weren’t too busy, they would get together for lunch. “We were both working so much and leaving the office at different times that we never had dinner together,” says Zac.

They married the winter after graduation at the Deering Estate on Biscayne Bay in Miami, where Zac had grown up. “We had the wedding ceremony right on the water and a big dance party with a Latin flavor because my mother is Puerto Rican and Zac’s father is also Puerto Rican,” says Samantha, adding that Zac’s father, Edward Soto, is a member of the Columbia Law School Class of 1978.

“It was the best party I’ve ever been to,” says Zac.

Shortly after the wedding, they decided to move to Miami, where Samantha is now a partner specializing in employment law at Weiss Serota Helfman Cole + Bierman, and Zac is a managing partner at PAG Law and chair of its data privacy, cybersecurity, and AI governance practice group. They have witnessed the Miami legal market explode over the past decade. “More and more talented people want to practice here,” says Samantha. “We were definitely ahead of the curve in that sense.”

At home, they often ping-pong ideas off one another on substantive legal questions and management issues at their firms, but they try to be “normal” with their daughter, Violet, 9. Says Zac: “She helps us maintain our perspective on what’s important in life.”