Below is a look at her legal career, which followed an arc from
Yale to a Supreme Court clerkship and private practice at one of
the country’s most prominent corporate firms.
YALE LAW GRADUATE
Vance and her husband attended Yale Law School together,
graduating in 2013. She served as an editor of the Yale Law
Journal and managing editor of the Yale Journal of Law &
Technology and participated in classes offering free legal
advice on Supreme Court and media freedom issues.
Among the pair’s Yale Law classmates was businessman Vivek
Ganapathy Ramaswamy, who ran unsuccessfully for the 2024
Republican presidential nomination.
CLERK FOR JUSTICE ROBERTS
Usha Vance was a law clerk to Supreme Court Chief Justice John
Roberts during the 2017-2018 term, holding one of four coveted
slots in his chambers. Law clerks help research cases and write
drafts of decisions.
Roberts during that term authored a 5-4 ruling upholding Trump's
travel ban targeting several Muslim-majority countries. In
another ruling, Roberts was in the 7-2 majority that backed a
Christian baker who refused to make a wedding cake for a gay
couple.
Vance earlier was a law clerk in Kentucky for now-6th U.S.
Circuit Judge Amul Thapar, who Trump once considered for a
Supreme Court vacancy. In 2014, she clerked on the influential
D.C. Circuit for Brett Kavanaugh, who was nominated by Trump and
confirmed to the Supreme Court in 2018.
CORPORATE LITIGATOR
At the 200-lawyer Munger firm, Vance, an associate, focused on
civil litigation and appeals, according to an online biography
that is now removed from the firm’s website.
The firm, whose founders include the late Charlie Munger, has
counted Berkshire Hathaway, Bank of America, and PG&E among its
clients.
Vance’s own clients there included a division of the Walt Disney
Company and the Regents of the University of California, court
records show.
A Munger spokesman on Monday said Vance had been an "excellent
lawyer and colleague." Douglas Emhoff, husband of Democratic
Vice President Kamala Harris, left his job at law firm DLA Piper
days after the 2020 election.
(Reporting by Mike ScarcellaEditing by David Bario and Rod
Nickel)
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