"Usha and J.D. made a memorable pair. The legal writer David Lat remembers attending a poker night with the couple in 2011..."

"... at the neo-Gothic home of [Amy] Chua and her husband, fellow Yale law professor Jed Rubenfeld.... At the time, Chua was mainly known for her book Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother, a gaily provocative paean to achievement-oriented parenting. Chua was a kind of den mother to certain student protégés, known on campus as 'Chua pets,' and J.D. was central among them. According to another former friend of the pair, Chua was not a fan of Usha. 'Probably because she didn’t engage in her bullshit,' the former friend said. 'You have to gossip and drink. J.D. loved that shit.' Usha did not. Lat happened to ride the Metro-North up from New York for the poker game with the soon-to-be Vances. He told his husband later that night that they’d reminded him of another famous Yale Law couple, Bill and Hillary Clinton. 'They had a kind of energy to them,' Lat said. 'They seemed very confident and successful. One thing that struck me as Hillary-esque was that Usha seemed to have more polish than J.D.'"

From "What Is Usha Vance Thinking? The veep candidate’s wife is the child of immigrants, a former Democrat, a highly skilled lawyer — and a total mystery" (NY Magazine).

"According to J.D., in Hillbilly Elegy, Chua told Vance he should focus on his relationship rather than chasing clerkships like many of his peers.... Sofia Nelson, who ended a close friendship with J.D.... says that near the end of law school, J.D. told her that he was open to being a stay-at-home dad.... It was important to J.D. that their family, unlike the one of his childhood, all share the same name, and Hamel, his surname at the time, came from a stepfather who was only in his life briefly. J.D. told at least two friends that he was open to taking Usha’s last name, Chilukuri. In the end, the two chose Vance, the name of the maternal grandparents who largely raised him."

Much more at the link.