Obama – Editor of the Harvard Law Review – Has No Law License???

sphinx · Mar 18, 2010

Ok, heres a weird one........

I saw a note slide across the #TCOT feed on Twitter last night that mentioned Michelle Obama had no law license. This struck me as odd, since (a) she went to school to be a lawyer, and (b) she just recently held a position with the University of Chicago Hospitals as legal counsel — and that’s a pretty hard job to qualify for without a law license.

But being a licensed professional myself, i knew that every state not only requires licensure, they make it possible to check online the status of any licensed professional. So I did, and here’s the results from theARDC Website:

She “voluntarily surrendered” her license in 1993. Let me explain what that means. 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 about five seconds before the state suspends (or disbars) you.

Here’s an illustration: I’m a nurse. At various times in my 28 years of nursing I’ve done other things when I got burned out; most notably a few years as a limousine driver; even an Amway salesman at one point. I always, always renewed my nursing license — simply becuase it’s easier to send the state $49.00 a month than to pay the $200, take a test, wate six weeks, etc., etc. . . I’ve worked (recently) in a Nursing Home where there was an 88 year old lawyer and a 95 year old physician. Both of them still had current licensures as well. They would never DREAM of letting their licenses lapse. I happen to know there is currently in the Indiana State Prison in Michigan City Indiana an inmate who is a licensed physician, convicted of murder when he chased the two burlars who entered his home and terrorized his family into the street and killed them. (And I can’t say i blame him for that, either.) This phisican still has an active medical license and still sees patients, writes prescriptions, etc all from inside the prison.

And he renews his medical licese every two years, too.
I tried looking up why she would “Voluntarily surrender” her license, but Illinois does not have it’s 1993 records online.
But when I searched for “Obama”, I found this:

“Voluntarily retired” — what does that mean? 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.

This is the former editor of the Harvard Law Review who doesn’t seem to give a crap about his law license.
Something else odd; while the Search feature brings up the names, any seaches for the Disciplinary actions ends quicky.

As in, Too Quickly. Less than a half-second quickly on a Search Engine that can take five seconds to Search for anything.

As in, “there’s a block on that information” kind of thing.
So we have the first Lawyer President and First Lady — who don’t actually have licenses to practice law.
There’s more to this story, I’m sure. I’ll let you know when I find it.

Pres. Barack Obama – Editor of the Harvard Law Review – Has No Law License???

And then there's this......

sphinx · Mar 18, 2010

But, wait there's more.........

What happened to Michelle Obama's law license?

First lady's legal career on 'court ordered inactive status'

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 list her status as "voluntarily inactive and not authorized to practice law."

It further states that Michelle license is "on court ordered inactive status."

The statement has many bloggers wondering why a court would issue an order to stop Michelle Obama from practicing law, and some have even suggested the first lady may have been facing allegations of misconduct.

Michelle Obama, known as Michelle Robinson at the time, attended Princeton University and earned her juris doctor degree from Harvard Law School in 1988. She took the bar exam in Illinois, passing it on her second try and receiving her license from the state of Illinois.

In 1988, Michelle became an associate at Sidley & Austin, a corporate law firm in her home town of Chicago. She was assigned to mentor summer associate and future husband, Barack Obama.

She remained at the law firm for three years, leaving the lucrative practice and corporate law behind in 1991 upon her father's death. According to the Washington Post, Sidley & Austin offered Barack Obama a job upon his graduation from Harvard, but the future president declined – even though he planned on returning to Chicago. He explained that he wanted to go into politics and that Michelle would be leaving the firm to go with him.

According to the New York Times, Michelle was unfulfilled by her law career. She told the newspaper, "I wanted to have a career motivated by passion and not just money."

She elaborated in an interview with Newsweek: "I didn't see a whole lot of people who were just thrilled to be there," she said. "I met people who thought this was a good life. But were people waking up just bounding out of bed to get to work? No."

In 1991, Michelle wrote to Valerie Jarrett, then-deputy chief of staff for Chicago Mayor Richard Daley. Jarrett offered her a job as an assistant to the mayor, a position that offered $60,000 a year. When Jarrett was promoted to head the Department of Planning and Development, Michelle became an "economic development coordinator," responsible for "developing strategies and negotiating business agreements to promote and stimulate economic growth within the City of Chicago."

In 1993, Michelle left the mayor's office and became executive director for the Chicago office of Public Allies, a taxpayer-funded organization that encourages young activists and places them in positions for nonprofit groups and government agencies. Barack Obama was a member of the group's founding advisory board.

Public Allies promises to help adults, ages 18 to 30, find "community leadership" positions and attend weekly training workshops and retreats. Recruits receive a monthly stipend of up to $1,800, plus paid health and child care and an additional award of $4,725 to pay for student loans or college tuition.

According to Investor's Business Daily, the program promotes "diversity and inclusion" and boasts that more than 70 percent of its recruits are "people of color."

"When they're not protesting, they're staffing AIDS clinics, handing out condoms, bailing criminals out of jail and helping illegal aliens and the homeless obtain food stamps and other welfare," Investor's Business Daily states.

One member of the 2005 Los Angeles class told IBD, "It was too touchy-feely. It's a lot of talk about race, a lot of talk about sexism, a lot of talk about homophobia, talk about -isms and phobias."

According to the report, one of those -isms is "heterosexism." The Chicago-based Public Allies training seminar describes it as a negative result of "capitalism, white supremacy, patriarchy and male-dominated privilege."

The IBD report calls it "a boot camp for radicals who hate the military."

Michelle Obama worked at Public Allies from spring 1993 until fall 1996 and served on its national board of directors from 1997 until 2001. She said, "The happiest time of my life was working to build Public Allies."

On the campaign trail with her husband last year, Michelle touted her choice to give up a lucrative legal career for community service.

"We left corporate America, which is a lot of what we're asking young people to do," she said. "Don't go into corporate America. You know, become teachers. Work for the community. Be social workers. Be a nurse. Those are the careers that we need, and we're encouraging our young people to do that."

In 1993, the same year she began working for Public Allies, she applied to change her Illinois registration status for practicing law – only four years after she received her license. It is now listed as "inactive."

James Grogan, deputy administrator and chief counsel for the Attorney Registration and Disciplinary Commission of the Supreme Court of Illinois, or ARDC, has been with the commission for 30 years. He told WND that on July 1, 1994, the Illinois Supreme Court entered an order allowing Michelle to be transferred to inactive status pursuant to Illinois Supreme Court rule 770.

The ARDC website explains, "Prior to November 1, 1999, former Supreme Court Rule 770 provided for a proceeding in the Court for any voluntary transfer to inactive status, whether because of some incapacitating condition or solely as a matter of the lawyer's preference because the lawyer would not be practicing law."

Grogan explained, "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."

He said attorneys often filed a petition for 770 when they wanted to pursue other careers, retire or begin raising a family.

"At the time, this happened all the time," he said. "Our office would have to file what's known as a consent."

Grogan said his office would have immediately alerted the court in a public filing if there had been reason to believe she should face disciplinary action.

"We filed a consent in Michelle Obama's case in which we had no objection to her transferring to inactive status," he said. "In the event that she did go on inactive status and she engaged in any disbarrable offenses, there would be a disciplinary case of public record."

He continued, "Just because someone goes on inactive it doesn't deprive us of the jurisdiction to prosecute."

Inundated by numerous 770 filings that each required a separate court ruling, the Illinois Supreme Court later simplified the inactivation process. In 2005, after Barack Obama was elected to the U.S. Senate, he changed his status to inactive as well.

"By 2005, which is several years later than his wife, the rule had changed such that you no longer had to file a petition that was such a pain for the court," Grogan explained. "Instead, the court had changed it to two types of status: inactive or retired. Either situation involves merely sending a letter to us basically saying, 'I want to transfer to inactive status.'"

Active lawyers are required to pay $289 each year and take 30 hours of Continuing Legal Education, or CLE, every two years. Under inactive status, attorneys are not required to take the courses, but they must pay $105 each year. "Inactive" registrants are not authorized to practice law. Lawyers who retire do not have to pay fees or take courses.

"A lot of people who aren't practicing say, 'Why bother?'" Grogan said.

Barack Obama remained listed as inactive until he retired this year.

link

stykthyn · Mar 18, 2010

proof its not what you know, but who you are.

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Obama – Editor of the Harvard Law Review – Has No Law License???

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