What happened in Tom Cotton's law career?

[Panich52]

Daily Kos
What happened in Tom Cotton's law career?
by ER Doc

      I was intrigued when I noticed that Cotton joined the Army two-and-a-half years after graduating from Harvard Law. During that time, he had served as a law clerk for a Reagan-appointed Appeals Court judge in the 5th Circuit, then was associated with two different law firms. In two-and-a-half years? Then he joined the Army as a second lieutenant in the Infantry, rather than becoming a JAG as an automatic captain. I haven't seen this discussed anywhere, but I have to wonder whether he was a superstar lawyer who just wanted to fight, or whether he a just a very bad lawyer.

...

His first job out of law school is the kind of prestigious posting that top young lawyers out of Harvard aspire to: a clerkship at a Federal Appeals Court. The Fifth Circuit is based in New Orleans, but Smith's duty station is Houston. I can't tell how long he clerked, but as I understand it, that is usually a one-year assignment, leaving 18 months for him to practice in two different firms "in cases at all levels of state and federal courts." Citation needed, indeed! New associates usually are involved in cases to the extent of endless hours sorting through mass quantities of documents, proofreading filings, and looking up citations.

... For unknown reasons, he apparently left GD & C to go to Cooper & Kirk, a small, prestigious DC firm that specializes in litigation. ... He did pass the bar along the way. He is not currently a member of the DC bar, but does have an Arkansas law license, currently inactive.

In any case, his second law firm job didn't last long, since he joined the Army in January 2005 and went to Officer Candidate School to become a second lieutenant. As I understand it, if he was an attorney in good standing, he would have been eligible to be directly commissioned as a captain to be a JAG attorney, but instead, he went into the infantry as the most junior of officers. ...

He seems to have done well in the military. Passed Airborne & Ranger schools, which isn't easy. A tour of duty as a platoon leader in the 101st Airborne for which he was decorated. Then, after returning from Iraq, he was assigned as a platoon leader to the Old Guard at Arlington. These are the ceremonial troops ... Another fairly prestigious posting; you need to be the right height & look good to get the job, as well as having favorable ratings. At some point, possibly after returning from Iraq, he was promoted to 1st Lieutenant. After another two years in the DC area, he volunteered to deploy and was promoted to captain. After another apparently satisfactory tour in Afghanistan, for which he was awarded a Bronze Star, he mustered out of the Army after four years of service.

     Also from Wikipedia:

After leaving active duty, Cotton joined McKinsey & Company, a management consulting firm. He subsequently returned to Dardanelle, where he works on his family's cattle farm.[7]

Since he ran for Congress three years after leaving the Army, he wasn't at McKinsey & Co very long. That isn't a law job, so he apparently either didn't want to go back to the world of litigation, or he knew he wasn't cut out for it. McKinsey & Co is an enormous international management consulting firm similar to Mitt Romney's old firm Bain & Company. ...

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http://m.dailykos.com/story/2015/03/15/1371070/-What-happened-in-Tom-Cotton-s-law-career?detail=email

[madashelltoo]

1. Problem fitting in?

[niyad]

2. some very interesting information here:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/10026376155

[Gothmog]

3. It sounds like Tom Corton is a bad lawyer

[jmowreader]

4. Either that, or he was a decent lawyer who just didn't like it

I can thoroughly understand THAT - when you get a client who's so unspeakably evil even his own mother doesn't like him, you can't go before the judge and say, "Your Honor, please throw my client's ass in jail where it belongs, and make sure it stays."