Mrs. O’s time at Sidley

Michelle Obama – Barney’s lawyer?

Turns out the potential First Lady served as a clearinghouse for the big purple dinosaur’s television show and merchandise in the late 1980s. Obama also reviewed Coors beer ads as part of her work at the Chicago-based international firm now known as Sidley Austin LLP, according to a story about Obama’s time as a corporate lawyer in Sunday’s Washington Post Magazine.

No matter your political views, the story is an interesting look at a young lawyer fresh out of Harvard Law School. Michelle Robinson, as she was then known, worked at the school’s legal aid bureau and considered public service work but ultimately decided to go corporate in part to pay off her student loans.

The future Mrs. Obama was recruited by Sidley’s intellectual property group. Colleagues and bosses had nothing but good things to say about her, but the ambitious young lawyer at one point complained to the firm’s human resources department that the work she was getting was unsatisfactory. She left Sidley in 1991 to work for the mayor’s office in Chicago.

On the campaign trail, Michelle Obama has urged others not to follow her footsteps into corporate America, encouraging young people to become teachers and social workers instead. Then again, if she weren’t at Sidley in 1989, she might not have met a certain summer associate named Barack.

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