| Michelle Obama, Esq. | |
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| Tweet Topic Started: Feb 9 2010, 08:41 AM (1,702 Views) | |
| brittany | Feb 9 2010, 08:41 AM Post #1 |
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obamafile A Peer Review I received the following over the transom from an attorney who was an associate and peer of Michelle Robinson (Obama) at the law firm of Sidley Austin, LLP. Michele's office was on my floor at the firm and I would walk by it everyday. She was rarely in the office, had very limited work papers in her office, yet apparently was drawing an associate salary while not practicing law, and billing huge hours as is ordinary for an associate. My fellow associates and I worked to 10 p.m. customarily and many times to 2 to 3 a.m., every weekend, meeting the crushing work loads. But Michele never had to do that, which understandably caused a lot of resentment amongst fellow associates. I have no first hand knowledge since it would be a private and confidential arrangement, but the associate scuttlebutt drawn from partner "leaks" was that she was drawing a firm salary while working full time for City Hall doing political fund raising and "special projects" work for the Daley Machine. The word was that this arrangement benefited the firm because many times their real estate clients had city zoning and other legal issues that required city approvals or resolution, so the firm needed to be viewed as on the city hall team and accede to their wishes. So from the very start of her career my opinion is that Michelle was the beneficiary of the nefarious city hall back scratching schemes. As demonstrated by The Obama File, she seems to have benefitted from these "arrangements" her entire professional career. I have my doubts that she did much at the University of Chicago to justify such an enormous salary and have never heard tell of any significant projects she was handling, let alone any accomplishments or major successes in the healthcare field. Michele at one point did leave officially to work for the Daley Administration, but was already well engaged in political activities during the day and regularly absent from the firm for a lengthy period of time before she left. I can't recall the precise timelines but I would estimate that she was listed as an associate at the firm but not carrying a regular work load for well over one year, maybe even two years before she "left" for the City Hall payroll. On a personal note, Michele was simply the most arrogant young person I have ever met in my life. She simply would not engage with her fellow associates and apparently viewed herself as superior to them. I personally observed that she would only engage with partners, most notably senior partners. Never a friendly smile or good morning for staff or fellow associates as she walked past them day after day after day. I remember one particular instance where a group of associates and I were chatting at a firm cocktail party and I noted how no one seemed to know Michele but were constantly gossiping about her. The gang just commented about how arrogant and unfriendly she was and never around. I commented that maybe she was just uncomfortable as a Southside girl being around all of these elitist, snobby white folks at a silk stocking firm. So I walked over to her when she was getting hors d'oeuvres and introduced myself as a friendly overture. She gave me a dirty look, literally threw her head back and turned her back on me and walked back over the a group of senior partners gathered around Eden Martin! As if you say how dare you approach me you filthy little underling. I went back to my group of associates friends feeling embarrassed and they just chuckled and said "told ya'." So, Michele was not the sweet or kind person the media would like us to believe. She was an elitist and only was interested in those who could advance her personal interest, not ordinary folks. To this day, that episode was the rudest I have ever been treated by anyone, and there are lot of rude lawyers out there. I never met Barack, but only heard about him second hand. My fellow associates who were summer interns with him (in '89 I think) described him as very tall, handsome, thin, and amiable but pretty aloof. They commented of his love of basketball and that he was always up for a game and that basketball and politics is all that grabbed his interest at the time. They stated that he did not seem to be interested in practicing law at a big firm and doing the hard and dull work that that entailed, was just drawing his big pay check, that he did not turn work assignments in on a timely matter, was gone frequently, and generally wanted to be a community organizer in preparation for a political career, not as a practicing attorney. As a result, the firm -- according to what I was told by people that should know -- did not extend him an offer. So as shocking as it seems, our Obama apparently did not make the cut as a summer intern. I suspect that is buried like all written documentation and will never see the light of day, but I do wonder if Obama could produce an offer letter from Sidley? According to what I was told, and this is just second hand, he was not offered a job and was instead sent a regrets letter. This of course is not to say that he could not have succeeded if he wanted to. He is bright and quick, and I would hate to try a lawsuit against him, but certainly not the brilliant legal scholar and committed, talented practicing attorney that he has been portrayed as by the media. He was, and is very much a clever Southside Chicago pol, no more and no less. According to Wikipedia, Obama was a summer associate with Hopkins & Sutter in 1990, and graduated in 1991 from Harvard. So that would suggest he was a first year summer intern at Sidley in 89', was not offered to return for a second summer, took a summer intern job at Hopkins & Sutter, and probably did not get an offer there either -- unless he can account for his time away from legal practice. Hopkins paid a top tier salary, so I doubt that he would turn that down if he was offered it. Both were kind of odd cases at Sidley, frankly. Regardless of their ethnicity, gender, or other background, all other young lawyers to a person that I met were very committed to making a career at the firm, worked very hard at their projects, worked on honing their craft and were trying to build a reputation within the firm for doing quality legal work and build a career. However, both Michele and Barack came into the firm and were treated very differently and behaved differently, more like political hires who were just using the firm as a political vehicle, getting a blue-chip firm stamp on their resume, and being funded in the meantime. Same basic "arrangement" as Bernadine Dohrn had. She did not do legal work to my knowledge and paying her a salary was simply a deposit in the favor bank to borrow a phrase from Bonfire of the Vanities. Mary A. Dempsey, current head of the Chicago Public Library and husband of super lawyer and Dem pol Phil Corboy, was another political hire. She did not really practice law but simply practiced Chicago politics and drew a salary at the same time. This is what they call the "Chicago Way." Future leaders are not chosen on merit or strength of character but are simply groomed and coopted as appartchniks of the political machine. My strong sense is that both Michele and Barack Obama are mere empty creations of the Chicago political machine who advanced through the ranks in order to support vested political and economic interests. Who these vested interests were or what back room deals were made, no one will ever know. Barack's background as a "constitutional scholar" is widely acknowledged a being a sham by the true constitutional lawyers and scholars in Chicago. How can you be a constitutional scholar when you have not written a single legal brief on the subject, given a single meaningful scholarly lecture before experts, published a peer-reviewed scholarly articles or treatise? There is simply no "there, there" which is why BHO is so lost when he goes off of teleprompter and seems to be so lost for answers and fresh ideas or even rudimentary knowledge -- he is simply the spokesman for these hidden interests and power brokers who espouse a radical far left ideology and delivers the same old tired leftist adages and buzz words. My measurement of him is that is literally the living, breathing and tragically elected "Chauncey Gardiner of the Left." (Remember the scene where the power brokers at the end of the film "Being There" were talking about raising Chance the gardener to the office of the President). Michelle Obama has been on court ordered inactive status with the Illinois State Attorneys bar from 1993, after only 4 years of practicing law. Many are curious to know what did she did, or didn't do, to acquire this status. Permalink . . . |
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| Walt-in-Durham | Feb 9 2010, 08:50 AM Post #2 |
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For someone who did not work with or even know the President, he seems to draw a lot of conclusions from innuendo. Reminds me of our favorite DA. Walt-in-Durham |
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| Deleted User | Feb 9 2010, 09:11 AM Post #3 |
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Deleted User
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Certainly the description of Michelle falls in line with much that we have seen of her both before and after the election. This is the Affirmative Action Dynamic Duo, hereinafter referred to as AADD. |
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| brittany | Feb 9 2010, 09:15 AM Post #4 |
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Sidley and Austin represented me in 3 closings. I also worked with partners and associates in some complex business transactions where they represented my company. The people I worked with were top notch and they worked very long hours. Learned a lot working with them. |
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| brittany | Feb 9 2010, 09:23 AM Post #5 |
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http://www.law.com/jsp/article.jsp?id=1202422510784 another viewpoint. Barrack turned down an offer to join the firm?? Obama joined Sidley's Chicago office in 1988 as part of the marketing and intellectual property practice group, handling transactional, antitrust and other matters. She worked on teams that represented AT&T Corp. in its 1990 hostile takeover bid for NCR Corp. and Union Carbide Corp. in its 1990 legal fight to complete a sale of a chemical business unit to Arco Chemical Co. over Federal Trade Commission opposition. When the Arco matter went to trial in Washington, Obama and other Sidley colleagues shifted to the capital for two months to prepare for a case that settled shortly after the trial started. She made a "very positive impression" on Union Carbide's counsel, a man who was often critical of attorneys, said Nate Eimer, a former Sidley partner who led work on the case. STANDING OUT "She stood out from the average associate," said Eimer, who now leads litigation boutique Eimer Stahl Klevorn & Solberg in Chicago. "She reserved her comment before she was sure of what she wanted to say. Her analysis was clear and precise." Sidley partner Kathleen Roach, who was an associate at the same time as Obama and who is now chairwoman of the firm's committee on retention and promotion of women, said Obama had a good reputation at the firm. "She was highly respected and we viewed it as a loss when she left the firm," said Roach. Obama, whose last name was Robinson when she was at the firm, had been tapped by Sidley leaders to mentor Barack Obama when he came to the firm as a summer associate and to encourage him to join a partnership track. Instead, she decided to leave Sidley in 1991 for a job in Chicago Mayor Richard Daley's office and to marry Barack, who turned down an offer from the firm. Edited by brittany, Feb 9 2010, 09:25 AM.
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| jewelcove | Feb 9 2010, 10:56 AM Post #6 |
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This caught my eye in Brittany's first post. (It is the last paragraph.)
Are all inactive statuses "court ordered", or is that unusual? Does anyone know how IL works wrt inactive law licenses? Edited by jewelcove, Feb 9 2010, 11:01 AM.
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| brittany | Feb 9 2010, 11:13 AM Post #7 |
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found this. Can't confirm. She gave up her license to practice voluntarily because she claimed she was "unfulfilled" practicing law. At the time, the only way to go on inactive status was to do what she did - which was to file a petition in the Illinois Supreme Court. She filed a petition 770, which is often done when attorneys want to pursue other careers, retire or begin raising a family. |
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| brittany | Feb 9 2010, 11:15 AM Post #8 |
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http://www.iardc.org/rulesSCT.html#Rule 770 |
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| Texas Mom | Feb 9 2010, 11:18 AM Post #9 |
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This sounds bogus- young associates, especially at large and high-powered firms like Sidley, do scut work- doc review, etc. Senior associates, headed for partnership, do more high-profile work and interact with clients. This story doesn't hold water for me- sounds like historical revisionism and puffery. |
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| jewelcove | Feb 9 2010, 12:46 PM Post #10 |
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RULE 770 Types of Discipline Conduct of attorneys which violates the Rules of Professional Conduct contained in article VIII of these rules or which tends to defeat the administration of justice or to bring the courts or the legal profession into disrepute shall be grounds for discipline by the court. Discipline may be: (a) disbarment; (b) disbarment on consent; (c) suspension for a specified period and until further order of court; (d) suspension for a specified period of time; (e) suspension until further order of the court; (f) suspension for a specified period of time or until further order of the court with probation; or (g) censure; (h) reprimand by the court, the Review Board or a hearing panel. Adopted May 26, 1978, effective July 1, 1978; amended June 3, 1980, effective July 1, 1980; amended August 9, 1983, effective October 1, 1983; amended October 13, 1989, effective immediately; amended and renumbered March 23, 2004, effective April 1, 2004. ****************************************************** I don't know what the rule was in 1993, however, currently 770 deals with discipline by the court. Edited by jewelcove, Feb 9 2010, 12:52 PM.
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| Carolyn says | Feb 9 2010, 02:28 PM Post #11 |
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With all due respect, this isn't 'innuendo'. This is solid hard factual observation from a person who personally met with Michelle, worked with her and knew her - AND was in the same law firm that refused to hire Barack back for a second summer, plus did not extend him an offer at his graduation. It is understandable that people outside of the law world would call it 'innuendo' but that is NOT what the law world calls it. The term is 'feedback' and it is the lifeblood of an attorney. As a 25 year veteran of the law world for two of the largest law firms in California, I assure everyone that a lawyer's entire career is built on their reputation. NO lawyer at my firm was ever, EVER hired until first the attorneys in charge picked up the phone or emailed (or both) their colleagues all over the country and asked - 'what do you hear about her/him?' You simply did not hire a person without considering their reputation. Forget the grades, forget the awards, etc. - the most vital thing about an attorney was their reputation. This feedback on Michelle is spot on - and the facts outside of what this lawyer mentions bear him out. Her sloppy, amateurish - and racist - mess of a Princeton thesis is glaring proof of her lack of intelligence. Trust me, you don't mysteriously abandon this stupidity in just 3 years of Harvard law. If you're stupid when you go in, you're stupid when go out. And Michelle was stupid. So stupid that she flunked her bar exams the first time and had to retake them. In addition, as her thesis also makes clear, she was a nasty bitch with a racist chip on her shoulder. This is borne out by the fact that in her first year at Sidley, Michelle threatened lawsuits against them if she wasn't given choice assignments. Damn, NO first year does that. NONE! You do NOT do that! First, no first year is given choice assignments, period. So she had no right to them in the first place. Second, IF you get choice assignments, you do so by working your butt off for a minimum of 3 years - not 1 or 2 but 3 years - before you are then taken along as an aide to the big guys who will have you assist but not lead the case. It is only in your 5th year that you start getting these choice assignments yourself. Therefore, for a first year to threaten with a lawsuit if she wasn't 'given' one is proof positive of an arrogant bitch with a chip of entitlement on her shoulder that could fell an elephant. As far as this 'feedback' on Barack is concerned? Oh, puhleeze. Like I needed this guy to tell me what was staring me in the face to begin with. Barack was the first - and only - President of the Harvard Law Review to get NO offers of clerkship from any judge in the United States and NO offers of employment from any top flight law firm in the country. This has never happened before - it is unheard of - it is like graduating at the top of your medical school and no hospital wanting you within 10 miles of their ER's. Doesn't happen. Doesn't happen. And the only explanation is the fact that Obama didn't deserve his awards. He was given them, he didn't earn them. His work ethic sucks, his research sucks - his writing sucks - he sucks. So I didn't need this guy to state the obvious. Obama was a lazy slacker who rode his ass on the race car to the finish line. It wasn't even his car, it was someone else's (his 'affirmative action' profs at Harvard, Ayers in Chicago, etc.) he merely sat his ass down in the seat and rode it to where it took him. My two cents. |
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| Carolyn says | Feb 9 2010, 02:39 PM Post #12 |
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Totally true, Texas Mom. Totally true. At the risk of boring everyone stupid with my '25 years as a legal secretary' blah, blah, blah - this 'praise' stinks from the word go. It's as bogus as 'I wrote both my books'. Yeah, right. What is this shit about 'very positive impression'? That is like saying 'she had a winning smile'. What the hell does THAT have to do with anything? I'll tell you - nothing. And you want to know what else is missing here? That big fat missing thing this little butt-kisser Eimer is conspicuously not mentioning? Her WORK! Screw this winning smile or she dressed nice garbage - where the damned hell is her WORK? Come on, buddy - show me the legal briefs she worked on, show me the memo's she written, cites she researched, the background she's done, papers she's written or edited, articles she's published - hell, show me the most obvious thing of all - show me her damned billable hours!! (Now that's something that makes the REAL 'positive impression' with your firm.) Hello? Do I hear crickets? Yup - Texas Mom - you smelled right. That nauseating sound from that little lawyer in a boutique firm in Chicago cooing so nicely about Michelle is the giant sucking noise of a desperate-for-referrals lawyer. Yuck! |
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| genny6348 | Feb 9 2010, 03:11 PM Post #13 |
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Genny6348
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Now Carolyn, I thoroughly enjoyed your posts! |
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| DANinZA | Feb 9 2010, 03:15 PM Post #14 |
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| LTC8K6 | Feb 9 2010, 03:25 PM Post #15 |
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Assistant to The Devil Himself
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Esquiress... |
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