(Photo by Drew Angerer/Getty Images)
Earlier this week, former Vice President Joe Biden, the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee, announced that he’d chosen Senator Kamala Harris as his running mate for the 2020 election. This is a historic choice for quite a few reasons. Harris is the first African American and South Asian American woman to be nominated for vice president by a major political party. If Biden wins the election, then Harris will be the first woman to ever assume the role of vice president.
But that’s not the only potentially historic thing about Harris being on the Democratic ticket. Her husband, DLA Piper partner Doug Emhoff, would become America’s first ever second gentleman.
Emhoff, 55, is an entertainment lawyer at the elite firm, which raked in more then $3 billion in gross revenue last year, landing it in third place on the annual Am Law 100 ranking. He isn’t hurting for cash, either, with equity partners at the firm taking in $1.951 million in profits in 2019.
Emhoff, a graduate of the University of Southern California Gould School of Law, has stood by his wife’s side as she became a political superstar. The two met on a blind date. NBC News has the details on the start of their romance:
“I was just a dude, a lawyer, and then I met Kamala on a blind date, set up by legendary filmmaker Reginald Hudlin, who did ‘House Party,’” and his wife, Emhoff said.
Emhoff recalled that, at a business meeting with Hudlin and his wife Chrisette, a close friend of Harris, Chrisette said she wanted to set him up with her pal. Emhoff said that as soon as Hudlin mentioned Harris’ name, he remembered she was the attorney general and responded, “Oh my god, she’s hot.”
Emhoff texted Harris and called her, a rarity in the dating world that led the prospective Veep to call the move “endearing” in her 2019 memoir. He’s endeared himself to the public as well, supporting his wife through thick and thin on social media through tweets and retweets, like this one, a retweet from Biden:
Take note, everyone: this litigator goes by “Dougey” at home. So cute!
We look forward to seeing Emhoff on the campaign trail. Here’s to making history.
The first ‘second gentleman’? Meet Kamala Harris’ husband, Doug Emhoff [NBC News]
Staci Zaretsky is a senior editor at Above the Law, where she’s worked since 2011. She’d love to hear from you, so please feel free to email her with any tips, questions, comments, or critiques. You can follow her on Twitter or connect with her on LinkedIn.