Posted on 11/18/2008 1:30:57 PM PST by Free ThinkerNY
Interestingly, Dan Morain of the L.A. Times has just discovered that Barack Obama has a pretty thin resume prior to being elevated to the presidency. Between 1993 and '96, Obama, the much-ballyhooed "Constitutional scholar," had only an unusually low 3,723 billable hours of legal work accrued over a four-year stint with his law firm employer Davis, Miner, Barnhill & Gallard. Further, he seems to have worked on but few cases and made little impact commensurate with his reputation. The question I have, of course, is why is the L.A. Times only NOW interested that Obama was "involved in relatively few cases before entering politics"? Where was this investigating before the election?
The Morain piece begins by recounting how Obama has so often made a big deal out of his days as a "civil-rights attorney" claiming it a key ingredient of his early, formative community development years. Yet, Morain finds that there isn't much record proving that Obama did a whole heck-of-a-lot back in those days. (bold mine)
Senior attorneys at the small firm where he worked say he was a strong writer and researcher, but was involved in relatively few cases before entering politics.
So, Obama, for all his claims of being involved in the lives of "churches and community groups" as a lawyer with the firm is... what? Blowing smoke? If the paper trail reveals he didn't work on many cases or have very many billable hours, how is it that he found this experience to be a monumental involvement in the community that shaped his career?
Morain doesn't directly ask these questions in his piece, wisely preferring to let the facts talk to the reader. But, a careful read of his L.A.Times piece cannot help but elicit the pertinent question: what the heck was Obama doing during those four years, anyway? After all, it sure doesn't look like he was doing much legal work!
Here's how Morain sums up Obama's paper trail:
30: The approximate number of legal cases Obama was involved in:
4: The number of years Obama was a full-time lawyer
70%: The amount of time Obama spent on voting rights, civil rights and employment, generally as a junior associate. (The rest of his time was spent on matters related to real-estate transactions, filing incorporation papers and defending clients against minor lawsuits.)
3,723: The number of billable hours Obama accrued while working at Davis, Miner, Barnhill & Gallard.
According to Morain, some of Obama's "big" cases were the case of a shortchanged babysitter, the case of a cold building tenant, and a lawsuit against a corporation that owned low-income housing on behalf of a guy that slipped and fell down. Additionally, Obama was involved in the enforcement of the federal Motor Voter law in Illinois -- at lest that one being a higher profile case.
So, it appears Obama has less billable hours during those four years than most young lawyers are expected to accrue (which is up to 2,000 hours a year according to some estimates), worked on but few cases, and only on one notable one. On top of that, he was rarely more than a "junior associate" the whole time.
This is the man that was praised for his extensive legal career? A slighted babysitter and a guy that fell down are the amazing legal challenges he faced as a young lawyer?
Of course, the biggest question is, why are we only now seeing this report in the L.A. Times? Where was this report two months ago or more?
Need I even ask?
I call him “?”.
Kinda like the candidate formerly known as Obama.
Any other Harvard Law grad working for a Chicago law firm would be billing well over 2000 hours per year, especially in his first few years out of school.
Perhaps we should be glad that the President-elect is far and away the laziest person to ever hold the office. He makes LBJ look like a workaholic.
Hahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahah, etc. What absolute hypocrites! They support osama throughout the two-year campaign and now are just asking the pertinant questions that should have been asked long ago.
Asking questions is racist. You know that!
Yes, and the osama win proves that racism is alive and thriving in the US.
The day after Obama’s second term the LA times are going to report about ‘a shocking tape with Obama and Rhashid Khalidi’.
Depressing...
Maybe he’s just so good that he could get things done in less than half the time. (/sarc)
Holy cow! Most junior attorneys bill that many hours in 18 months.
“The question I have, of course, is why is the L.A. Times only NOW interested that Obama “
They are fair and unbiased. They were a little biased during the election, and now they’ll make up for it, so that on average the needle points to “neutral”.
When will America come to the conclusion that “This is NOT the Obama I knew!” ??
(Sardonic reference to “That was not the Jeremiah Wright I knew!” and “That was not the Tony Rezko I knew!” )
What next? Will the L.A. Times “discover” that there are no records of Obama’s days at Columbia?
How about records of his birth? Now there’s a “Times” exclusive.
I remember reading somewhere that he was the lead on only one case. Other than that he did not present a case before a jury, he did the background and research work.
I also read that he and those 3 women from that church had been looking for a project and when that asbestos thing came up he said bingo, we have us a project.
The whole thing was simply to build stepping stones. I’d like to know what those 3 women from the church are doing now.
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