Senior attorneys at the small firm where he worked say he was a strong writer and researcher, but was involved in relatively few cases – about 30 – and spent only four years as a full-time lawyer before entering politics.
[off-topic, but once again indicating that those around Obama never saw him as leadership material]
So what kind of clients did he represent?:
In one instance, Obama defended a nonprofit corporation that owns low-income housing projects against a lawsuit in which a man alleged that he slipped and fell because of poor maintenance. Obama got the suit dismissed.
Wait a second. Obama defended the owner of a building against a poor tenant who was injured because the property wasn't maintained?
In another case, Obama appeared on behalf of a nonprofit corporation that provided healthcare for poor people. A woman who claimed income of less than $8,000 a year had sued Obama’s client to obtain a $336 payment for baby-sitting services; Obama’s client paid up, and the case was settled.
And he represented another corporate client who had failed to pay a poor woman for services rendered -- a client that had to pay up?
In 1994, Obama appeared in Cook County court on behalf of Woodlawn Preservation & Investment Corp., defending it against a suit by the city, which alleged that the company failed to provide heat for low-income tenants on the South Side during the winter.
Whoa. He defended another building owner who failed to provide heat for poor people?
Apparently, Obama was the lawyer for the slumlords. I suppose having a young black community-organizer lawyer to defend the clients who have wronged poor black people is a good move for a law firm.
But mostly he was just an average worker:
“He was doing the work that any first-year or second-year associate would do,” Miner said. “In litigation, he was doing basic research and writing memos… . In the first couple years he would play a very minor role. He wouldn’t know [much], so he would take the lead from whoever was supervising his work.”
Obama was a good follower. Other lead, Obama followed. Palin took over her PTA, Obama had his work supervised.
And while nobody who knew him from then seemed to think he would be a good leader, they all seem to know that his REAL goal was to get elected to public office:
People who knew Obama in the early 1990s said he made it clear that he aspired to run for public office. For that, the firm, now called Miner, Barnhill & Gallard, was a good place to start.
The firm has been a force in Chicago politics. Carol Moseley Braun, one of Obama’s predecessors in the U.S. Senate from Illinois, briefly worked there.
One thing he apparently did not learn in his time as a lawyer is a real day's labor for a day's pay, a lack of concern for showing up for work that he carried with him into the U.S. Senate, where he's absent more than he's present:
The law firm says Obama logged 3,723 billable hours during his tenure from 1993 to 2004, most of it during the first four years.
That's about 310 hours a year. For comparison, according to this article, the standard minimum billable hours at a typical law firm would be about 2000, but for small and solo firms you would expect about 1200:
Back in my law factory days I regularly billed 2200 - 2400 hours per year. 2000 hours per year was considered the absolute minimum acceptable number of billable hours for associates. Since opening my solo office in 1998, I have been billing and collecting around 1200 hours per year, though I work more hours than I did at the law factories (there is a lot to be said for having staff members waiting on you hand and foot so you are free to bill, bill, bill).
Obama's excuse was that for many years, he was also a legislator (which means he treated the state senate job as another part-time position). But note that he worked 4 years before becoming senator, and if you assume he worked ALL of his hours during that first 4 years, and did NOTHING the last 8 years for the money he was paid, that's still less than 1000 hours a year. In case you didn't know, the number of hours available a year for a typical 8-hour, 5-day-a-week job is 2000 hours.
So, you can ask the question, what did Obama do those last 8 years to earn his money, since he apparently wasn't actually working billable hours for the law firm. Well, this article explains that as well -- he WAS working for his clients, in his job as State Senator (which kind of ruins his "different kind of politician" meme):
In some instances, Illinois state Sen. Obama took action that could have benefited some of his firm’s clients. In 1998, for instance, he used state Senate stationery to urge that state and city officials provide tax subsidies to help a partnership consisting of Davis and Rezko develop low-income housing, the Chicago Sun-Times reported last year.
In 2001, Obama was coauthor of a law that created a tax credit for people who donate land, buildings or construction material to help develop low-income housing.
Illinois state Rep. Jack D. Franks, a Democrat, lauded the bill, which garnered near-unanimous support. But Franks said that while the measure helped Obama’s low-income constituents, it raises questions because his law firm’s clients could have benefited from it.
Franks says he understands why Obama did this, but it does show a lack of judgment:
“I can’t fault him for the idea. But he is wearing two hats. He is a legislator, and he is serving as a private attorney whose client interests benefited here. This goes to the judgment issue.”
In the end, the Obama campaign tries to defend him against these actions Obama took, by explaining Obama's socialist philosophy that the government exists to solve people's problems for them:
Obama strategist Axelrod scoffed at the notion that Obama should have avoided such legislation. ...
“His view of public policy is that you should use the tools of government to deal with some of the crying social needs that we have.”
No comments:
Post a Comment