When Leslie Arffa was asked what she thought were Samir Doshi’s best qualities, she cleared her throat, and hesitated with evident emotion. “He’s incredibly kind and thoughtful,” she said. “I never met anyone before that I never got tired of spending time with.”
Ms. Arffa added that he was “also very attentive, and a very diligent, hardworking person who has taught me a lot about being focused, and he always keeps me laughing.”
Ms. Arffa, 29, who recently completed a clerkship with Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. on the Supreme Court, will start as a litigation associate in the fall at the Washington office of Sullivan & Cromwell.
Mr. Doshi, 30, is a former law clerk to Raymond J. Lohier Jr., a judge on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit. He now serves as a Bristow Fellow at the office of the solicitor general in the U.S. Justice Department in Washington.
The couple met in August 2015 at a party during their first week at Yale Law School. They started dating during their second year, in February 2017.
“I found Leslie to be very even-keeled,” said Mr. Doshi, who graduated magna cum laude from Cornell and received a law degree from Yale, where he also served as an editor of the law journal. “She’s the kind of person who always remains calm. Regardless of the situation she never gets rattled.”
Ms. Arffa graduated summa cum laude from Harvard and received a master’s degree from Cambridge University in England, as well as a law degree from Yale, where she too served as an editor of the law journal.
Despite her even-keeled demeanor, Ms. Arffa was overcome with emotion once more when she got around to discussing Mr. Doshi in a family context.
“At one point, I was busy clerking in Washington while he was clerking in New York, where my family lives,” she said. “In what was probably the most seminal moment of our relationship, he stayed up all night trying to find the right birthday gift for my mother. He even went to my mother’s birthday party without me as I could not make it.
“Needless to say, my mother thinks that he is the most caring and thoughtful person she has ever met.”
Another unforgettable moment occurred on June 30, 2020, when Ms. Arffa entered their home in Washington to find their living room and kitchen furniture replaced by wall-to-wall flowers, an endless array of candles, and Mr. Doshi on one knee with an engagement ring in hand. (Mr. Doshi had hid all the furniture in the bedroom.)
“It was the most beautiful proposal, even though it came in the middle of a pandemic,” Ms. Arffa said.
They were married Sept. 4 at the Beach Plum Inn in Chilmark, Mass., in a ceremony incorporating Jewish and Christian elements.
Judge Lohier was given a one-day designation by the Commonwealth of Massachusetts to solemnize the marriage. Earlier in the day, Mahesh Shelat, a Hindu priest, led a Hindu ceremony.
“My family was so excited to welcome Samir into our family,” the bride said. “I tried to model myself after the way he always gives all of himself to family and friends, as if he’s always looking out for the people he loves most.”
