When Nicole Marie Revenaugh and Marisa Andrea O’Gara met, they weren’t looking for love — they were looking to win in court.
Since April 2022, Ms. O’Gara had been working on a case challenging a Kansas law that required signatures on absentee or mail-in ballots be verified with previous documents sent to the election office. Her law firm was based in Washington, while Ms. Revenaugh’s, in Topeka, Kan., served as local counsel. Though they were working on the same case, they did not cross paths for years.
Although Ms. Revenaugh’s law firm had been on the case since it was filed in 2021, she only started working on it in January 2025. On a Zoom call with the team, Ms. O’Gara was instantly struck.
“I was like, ‘Who is that?’” Ms. O’Gara said when she saw Ms. Revenaugh. “I was interested in her from the start.”
Ms. Revenaugh, 40, is a civil litigation lawyer and a partner at Irigonegaray & Revenaugh. She was born in New Britain, Conn., and raised in Kansas City, Kan. She has a bachelor’s degree in history from William Jewell College in Liberty, Mo., and a law degree from Washburn University School of Law in Topeka.
Ms. O’Gara, 35, works remotely as a senior policy advisor for the Institute of Responsive Government, a nonprofit that produces governmental research and policy solutions. She was born in Northborough, Mass., and raised in Hudson, N.H. She has a bachelor’s degree in English and French from the University of Rhode Island and a law degree from Cornell Law School.
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The two finally met in person in late February at a lunch in Topeka, before an oral argument. Ms. O’Gara arrived at the restaurant at the Cyrus Hotel, Topeka, late with a jumble of briefcases and binders. Ms. Revenaugh quickly jumped to help her, grabbing a menu from behind the counter for Ms. O’Gara, as everyone had already gotten their food.
“It sounds a bit cliché, but I felt like our eyes just sort of locked in on each other, and we had this moment,” Ms. O’Gara said. “I thought, ‘Wow, she’s beautiful.’”
That night, Ms. O’Gara downloaded Tinder in the hopes that she would find Ms. Revenaugh. She did not.
Ms. O’Gara returned to Washington after the oral argument. They emailed and called often, becoming each other’s point of contact for their law firms.
As the two worked on the case, their phone calls got longer and more personal. One night, in April 2025, they shared a three-hour call. At that point, it was clear that the two were interested in each other.
“I mean, you don’t just talk to anyone for three hours,” Ms. Revenaugh said. “She had the best phone voice. I feel like there’s a special version for me.”
Ms. O’Gara was in an open relationship and had practiced non-monogamy for 10 years. As they got closer, Ms. O’Gara said she found herself not wanting to be with anybody else. She ended her relationship before the two started dating. Ms. Revenaugh was in a long-distance relationship, which she also ended.
They wouldn’t meet in person again until May, on a trip the two planned outside of their case work. Ms. O’Gara flew to Topeka for a weekend, where they got engaged. They knew it was quick, but it felt right.
“Finding myself in this situation was surprising,” said Ms. Revenaugh, who has a child from a previous marriage and divorced in 2017, and did not want to marry again (Ms. O’Gara’s previous marriage also ended in divorce). “But I just fell in love with her so quickly, it just felt like such an obvious thing that I wanted to do.”
Ms. Revenaugh asked Ms. O’Gara to marry her, presenting a 14k yellow gold three-stone diamond ring at Lake Shawnee in Topeka. A week and a half later, during a trip to Tulum, Mexico, Ms. O’Gara returned the gesture with a vintage-inspired 14k yellow gold ring with an oval cut diamond. The proposal took place on a pitch-black night, lit only by the moon.
“I kept holding my hand up to the light to try and catch a glimpse of the ring,” Ms. Revenaugh said. “It was the girliest thing I’ve ever caught myself doing.”
The couple lives in Topeka and Washington, traveling back and forth, but will soon permanently live in Topeka.
On Feb. 14, they were married before 80 guests at the Providence Athenaeum, a Rhode Island library, by Sheri Lynn Johnson, Ms. O’Gara’s former law school professor, who received a one-day marriage officiant certification from the state.
The signature-matching case remains in active litigation, with Ms. Revenaugh continuing her work on it. Ms. O’Gara withdrew from the case this month after starting a new job. Their partnership, however, endures in another capacity: building a life together.
The post First They Worked the Case. Then They Made It Personal. appeared first on New York Times.
