Usha Vance – the lawyer who is now America’s ‘second lady’
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Usha Vance is a lawyer, a Yale graduate, the Hindu daughter of Indian immigrants – and has just become the United States’ “second lady”.
She was thrust into the spotlight after her husband, JD Vance, was chosen as Donald Trump’s running mate in the 2024 presidential election.
Almost immediately, she quit her job as a lawyer and appeared on stage to introduce him at the Republican Convention.
There, she gave a flavour of her husband; a “working-class guy” who had overcome childhood traumas to attend Yale Law School.
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A “meat and potatoes” man who had adapted to her vegetarian diet and learned to cook Indian food for her mother.
A “tough Marine” who had served in Iraq but loved nothing more than “playing with puppies and watching the movie Babe”.
That duality was also present in the way the pair positioned themselves as committed Republicans, but parents first and foremost.
Mrs Vance talked of her husband’s “over-riding ambition” to have a family, while he called her “an incredible lawyer and a better mom”.
Early life and family background
Mrs Vance, 38, was raised in San Diego by parents who had moved to the US from India in the 1970s.
Her mother is a biologist and provost at the University of California at San Diego; her father is an engineer, according to Mr Vance’s campaign.
In her introductory speech at the Republican Convention, she said her middle-class upbringing was very different to her husband’s experience growing up poor in Ohio.
“That JD and I could meet at all, let alone fall in love and marry is a testament to this great country,” Mrs Vance said. “It is also a testament to JD.”
Pic: Reuters
In a June interview with Fox News alongside her husband, Mrs Vance talked about being raised in a religious household.
“My parents are Hindu and that is one of the things that made them such good parents, that made them really good people. And so I have seen the power of that.”
Mr Vance told the broadcaster his wife had helped him “re-engage” with his Christian faith.
Mrs Vance received an undergraduate degree at Yale University and a master of philosophy at the University of Cambridge through the Gates Cambridge scholarship.
She then returned to Yale for law school, where she met her now-husband.
How the couple met
In his 2016 memoir Hillbilly Elegy, Mr Vance said the two got to know each other through a class assignment, where he soon “fell hard” for his writing partner.
“In a place that always seemed a little foreign, Usha’s presence made me feel at home,” he wrote.
In a 2017 NBC interview, Mrs Vance described liking that Mr Vance – then just a friend – was “very diligent” when they were assigned to work together on a brief in law school.
“He would show up for these 9am appointments that I set for us to work on the brief together,” she said.
The pair graduated in 2013 and got married the following year.
They live in Cincinnati, Ohio, and have three children together: Ewan, Vivek and Mirabel.
Pic: Reuters
Career as a lawyer
After law school, Mrs Vance spent a year clerking for Justice Brett Kavanaugh – who is now on the Supreme Court – when he served as an appeals court judge in Washington, followed by a year as a law clerk to Chief Justice John Roberts.
During that time, Justice Roberts authored a 5-4 ruling upholding Mr Trump’s travel ban targeting several Muslim-majority countries.
In another ruling, he was in the 7-2 majority that backed a Christian baker who refused to make a wedding cake for a gay couple.
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Until recently, Mrs Vance was an associate at the 200-lawyer Munger Tolles & Olson firm, where she focused on civil litigation and appeals.
The firm has counted Berkshire Hathaway, Bank of America, and PG&E among its clients.
Her clients there included a division of the Walt Disney Company and the Regents of the University of California, court records show.
A Munger spokesman said she had been an “excellent lawyer and colleague”.
What JD Vance has said about his wife
Talking about meeting as law students in a 2017 interview, Mr Vance said: “The thing I remember about Usha is how completely forward and confident with herself she was.”
In his memoir, he credited part of his success and happiness to his wife.
“Even at my best, I’m a delayed explosion – I can be defused, but only with skill and precision,” he wrote.
“It’s not just that I’ve learned to control myself but that Usha has learned how to manage me.”
He also told the Megyn Kelly Show podcast in 2020 that he benefits from having a “powerful female voice” on his shoulder.
“Usha definitely brings me back to earth a little bit, and if I maybe get a little bit too cocky or a little too proud, I just remind myself that she is way more accomplished than I am,” he said.
