Why did Michelle Obama give up her license to practice law in 1993? Records at the Attorney Registration and Disciplinary Commission of the Supreme Court of Illinois
The Supreme Court of Illinois is the state supreme court, the highest court of the state of Illinois. The court's authority is granted in Article VI of the current Illinois Constitution, which provides for seven justices elected from the five appellate judicial districts of the state: three justices from t…
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Her last year registered as an active lawyer was 1993, and her public record of discipline and pending proceedings says “none.” “Michelle Obama holds a valid law license in Illinois,” Steven Splitt, a spokesperson for the IARDC, told the Daily Caller in an email.
Michelle Obama graduated from Harvard Law School in 1988, and was admitted as a lawyer by the Supreme Court of Illinois on May 12, 1989. Following graduation, she joined Sidley Austin, a corporate law firm in Chicago. But a few years later, in 1994, while working for the Public Allies project in Chicago,...
This passage was also wrong: Michelle Obama did not “voluntarily surrender” her law license; she requested that her license be placed on “inactive” status.
(The “Malpractice Insurance” section of Michelle Obama’s license information which included a notation about her being on “court ordered inactive status” was not, as commonly misinterpreted, an indication of any wrongdoing on her part.
Michelle Obama graduated from Harvard Law School in 1988, and was admitted as a lawyer by the Supreme Court of Illinois on May 12, 1989. Following graduation, she joined Sidley Austin, a corporate law firm in Chicago.
He surrendered his license back in 2008 in order to escape charges he lied on his bar application.
We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.
Free Republic: In the State of the Union Address, President Obama said: “We find unity in our incredible diversity, drawing on the promise enshrined in our Constitution: the notion that we are all created equal.
From 1992 until his election to the U.S. Senate in 2004, Barack Obama served as a professor in the Law School. He was a Lecturer from 1992 to 1996.
President Obama graduated from Harvard Law School in 1991 and was admitted as a lawyer by the Supreme Court of Illinois on Dec. 17, 1991. Prior to being elected to the Illinois state Senate in 1996, he worked as a civil rights lawyer at the firm formerly known as Davis, Miner, Barnhill & Galland. Four days after Obama announced that he would run for president in February 2007, he voluntarily elected to have his law license placed on “inactive” status, according to Grogan. Then, after becoming president, he elected to change his status to “retired” in February 2009.
Obama’s motion seeking a transfer to inactive status was filed on June 8, 1994. And the court granted the request the following month, Grogan said.
He surrendered his license back in 2008 in order to escape charges that he lied on his bar application.
Free Republic: In the State of the Union Address, President Obama said: “We find unity in our incredible diversity, drawing on the promise enshrined in our Constitution: the notion that we are all created equal.”
Law School website, which nevertheless pointedly states that Barack Obama served as a professor there regardless of his official title.
Barack Obama was not a constitutional law professor at the University of Chicago. 5. The University of Chicago released a statement in March 2008 saying that Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.) “served as a professor” in the law school but that is a title Obama, who taught courses there part time, never held. 6.
Moreover, neither the Illinois State Bar Association nor the ARDC lists any accusations of misconduct or disciplinary actions against the Obamas. According to a statement quoted by FactCheck.org, ARDC deputy administrator, and chief counsel James Grogan, says the Obamas were “never the subject of any public disciplinary proceedings.”
6. “He did not hold the title of Professor of Law,” said Marsha Ferziger Nagorsky, Assistant Dean for Communications and Lecturer in Law at the University of Chicago School of Law.
It’s true that, although both President Obama and the University of Chicago have stated at various times that he was a “professor of law” or “professor of constitutional law” at the U.C. Law School, he never officially held that title. He was first a Lecturer (1992-1996) and then a Senior Lecturer (1996-2004) until elected to the Senate in 2004.
Barack and Michelle Obama surrendered their law licenses to avoid pending disciplinary actions.
A lawyer’s holding active license status can entail a number of obligations, both financial and otherwise: paying bar association fees, carrying malpractice insurance, taking continuing legal education classes, etc. Therefore, it is not uncommon for lawyers who are not in practice (i.e., do not appear in court or counsel clients) and do not expect to return to practice in the near future to request that their licenses be placed on inactive status in order to avoid these ongoing obligations.
The difference is crucial: a lawyer who has surrendered his law license has given it up and therefore no longer has a license, while a lawyer who has gone on inactive status still holds a valid law license but is not currently engaged in any professional activities that require it to be active.
This was hardly remarkable or suspicious: neither of the Obamas held a currently active law license because neither President of the United States nor First Lady was a position that required one. This statement was also inaccurate in referring to the Obamas as the “first Lawyer President and First Lady,” as both Bill and Hillary Clinton held law degrees and engaged in legal work prior to the former’s election to the presidency.
James Grogan, deputy administrator and chief counsel for the Attorney Registration and Disciplinary Commission of the Supreme Court of Illinois, affirmed that the Obamas were “never the subject of any public disciplinary proceedings,” and the Illinois State Bar Association continues to list Barack and Michelle Obama as Honorary Members of that organization.
Bill Clinton hung onto his law license until he was convicted of making a false statement in the Lewinsky case and had to “Voluntarily Surrender” his license too. President Barack Obama, former editor of the Harvard Law Review, is no longer a “lawyer”.
Barack Obama — Editor of the Harvard Law Review — Has No Law License?
Fact check: The Obamas did not surrender their law licenses because of malpractice. Shared widely on Facebook, posts claim that former President Barack Obama and former First Lady Michelle Obama both lost their licenses to practice law for disciplinary reasons. This claim is false. Reuters Fact Check. REUTERS/Axel Schmidt.
The entry for Michelle Obama provides her maiden name, Michelle Lavaughn Robinson, and the date she was admitted to the bar, May 12, 1989. Her Illinois registration status is “Voluntarily inactive and not authorized to practice law” and she was last registered in 1993.As is the case with her husband, under Michelle’s Public Record ...
Just because you read the same blog post expounded upon at a thousand different sites doesn't make it any more credible. Michelle Obama left Sidley Austin in 1992 and took a job with a non-profit in 1993 that clearly was not in the natire of practicing law.
If this was a Republican, the Democrooks would have her up on charges already.
Active vs. inactive cannot possibly be court ordered. It is a choice the attorney makes each year when registering. If not engaged in the regular practice of law then you choose inactive status (still a member of the bar, but on inactive status because well, you are inactive).
Yeah...on further consideration, depeche is probably ill-informed, even though he is registered with the ARDC.
He surrendered his license back in 2008 in order to escape charges he lied on his bar application. A "Voluntary Surrender" is not something where you decide "Gee, a license is not really something I need anymore, is it?" and forget to renew your license. No, a "Voluntary Surrender" is something you do when you've been accused of something, and you 'voluntarily surrender" your license five seconds before the state suspends you.
4. A senior lecturer is one thing, a fully ranked law professor is another. Barack Obama was NOT a Constitutional Law Professor at the University of Chicago .
We see the beginnings of a probably professional smear campaign masquerading as news. THis is the sort of non-grass roots, viral propaganda campaign that the right so loves.
Hilarious, so that means you don't have any real evidence and factcheck.org is a leftist lying site that is only accurate when your preconceived understanding of reality comports with them, then, and only then, they are the bastion of truth.
Neither the Illinois State Bar Association nor the ARDC lists any accusations of misconduct or disciplinary actions against the Obamas. According to a statement quoted by FactCheck.org, ARDC deputy administrator and chief counsel James Grogan says the Obamas were "never the subject of any public disciplinary proceedings."
Raised on the South Side of Chicago, Illinois, Obama is a graduate of Princeton University and Harvard Law School. In her early legal career, she worked at the law firm Sidley Austin where she met Barack Obama. She subsequently worked in nonprofits and as the associate dean of Student Services at the University of Chicago as well as the vice president for Community and External Affairs of the University of Chicago Medical Center. Michelle married Barack in 1992, and together they have two daughters.
Obama advocated for her husband's policy priorities by promoting bills that support it. She hosted a White House reception for women's rights advocates in celebration of the enactment of the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act of 2009 Pay equity law. She supported the economic stimulus bill in visits to the United States Department of Housing and Urban Development and United States Department of Education. Some observers looked favorably upon her legislative activities, while others said she should be less involved in politics. According to her representatives, she intended to visit all United States Cabinet -level agencies in order to get acquainted with Washington.
As first lady, Obama served as a role model for women and worked as an advocate for poverty awareness, education, nutrition, physical activity, and healthy eating. She supported American designers and was considered a fashion icon.
At first, Obama had reservations about her husband's presidential campaign, due to fears about a possible negative effect on their daughters. She says she negotiated an agreement in which her husband was to quit smoking in exchange for her support of his decision to run. About her role in her husband's presidential campaign she has said: "My job is not a senior adviser". During the campaign, she discussed race and education by using motherhood as a framework.
Obama's predecessors Hillary Clinton and Laura Bush supported the organic movement by instructing the White House kitchens to buy organic food. Obama extended their support of healthy eating by planting the White House Kitchen Garden, an organic garden, the first White House vegetable garden since Eleanor Roosevelt served as First Lady. She also had bee hives installed on the South Lawn of the White House. The garden supplied organic produce and honey for the meals of the First Family and for state dinners and other official gatherings.
They married on October 3, 1992. After suffering a miscarriage, Michelle underwent in vitro fertilisation to conceive their daughters Malia Ann (born 1998) and Natasha (known as Sasha, born 2001). The Obama family lived on Chicago's South Side, where Barack taught at the University of Chicago Law School.
The Robinson and Shields families trace their roots to pre- Civil War African Americans in the American South. On her father's side, she is descended from the Gullah people of South Carolina's Low Country region. Her paternal great-great grandfather, Jim Robinson, was born into slavery in 1850 on Friendfield Plantation, near Georgetown, South Carolina. He became a freedman at age 15 after the war. Some of Obama's paternal family still reside in the Georgetown area. Her grandfather Fraser Robinson, Jr. built his own house in South Carolina. He and his wife LaVaughn (née Johnson) returned to the Low Country from Chicago after retirement.