I received the following over the transom from an attorney who was an associate and peer of Michelle Robinson (Obama) at the law firm of Sidley Austin, LLP.
 
Michele's office was on my floor at the firm and I would walk by it everyday.  She was rarely in the office, had very limited work papers in her office, yet apparently was drawing an associate salary while not practicing law, and billing huge hours as is ordinary for an associate.  My fellow associates and I worked to 10 p.m. customarily and many times to  2 to 3 a.m., every weekend, meeting the crushing work loads.  But Michele never had to do that, which understandably caused a lot of resentment amongst fellow associates.  I have no first hand knowledge since it would be a private and confidential arrangement, but the associate scuttlebutt drawn from partner "leaks" was that she was drawing a firm salary while working full time for City Hall doing political fund raising and "special projects" work for the Daley Machine.  The word was that this arrangement benefited the firm because many times their real estate clients had city zoning and other legal issues that required city approvals or resolution, so the firm needed to be viewed as on the city hall team and accede to their wishes.  So from the very start of her career my opinion is that Michelle was the beneficiary of the nefarious city hall back scratching schemes.  As demonstrated by The Obama File, she seems to have benefitted from these "arrangements" her entire professional career.  I have my doubts that she did much at the University of Chicago to justify such an enormous salary and have never heard tell of any significant projects she was handling, let alone any accomplishments or major successes in the healthcare field. 

      

On a personal note, Michele was simply the most angry, arrogant and caustic young person I have ever met in my life.  She simply would not engage with her fellow associates and apparently viewed herself as superior to them.  I personally observed that she would only engage with partners, most notably senior partners.  Never a friendly smile or good morning for staff or fellow associates as she walked past them day after day after day.  I remember one particular instance where a group of associates and I were chatting at a firm cocktail party and I noted how no one seemed to know Michele but were constantly gossiping about her.  The gang just commented about how arrogant and unfriendly she was and never around.  I commented that maybe she was just uncomfortable as a Southside girl being around all of these elitist, snobby white folks at a silk stocking firm.  So I walked over to her when she was getting hors d'oeuvres and introduced myself as a friendly overture.  She gave me a dirty look, literally threw her head back and turned her back on me and walked back over the a group of senior partners gathered around Eden Martin!  As if you say how dare you approach me you filthy little underling.  I went back to my group of associates friends feeling embarrassed and they just chuckled and said "told ya'."  So, Michele was not the sweet or kind person the media would like us to believe.  She was an elitist and only was interested in those who could advance her personal interest, not ordinary folks.  To this day, that episode was the rudest I have ever been treated by anyone, and there are lot of rude lawyers out there.
 
I never met Barack, but only heard about him second hand.  My fellow associates who were summer interns with him (in '89 I think) described him as very tall, handsome, thin, and amiable but pretty aloof.  They commented of his love of basketball and that he was always up for a game and that basketball and politics is all that grabbed his interest at the time.  They stated that he did not seem to be interested in practicing law at a big firm and doing the hard and dull work that that entailed, was just drawing his big pay check, that he did not turn work assignments in on a timely matter, was gone frequently, and generally wanted to be a community organizer in preparation for a political career, not as a practicing attorney.  As a result, the firm -- according to what I was told by people that should know -- did not extend him an offer.   So as shocking as it seems, our Obama apparently did not make the cut as a summer intern.  I suspect that is buried like all written documentation and will never see the light of day, but I do wonder if Obama could produce an offer letter from Sidley?  According to what I was told, and this is just second hand, he was not offered a job and was instead sent a regrets letter.  This of course is not to say that he could not have succeeded if he wanted to.   He is bright and quick, and I would hate to try a lawsuit against him, but certainly not the brilliant legal scholar and committed, talented practicing attorney that he has been portrayed as by the media.  He was, and is very much a clever Southside Chicago pol, no more and no less.
 

According to Wikipedia, Obama was a summer associate with Hopkins & Sutter in 1990, and graduated in 1991 from Harvard.  So that would suggest he was a first year summer intern at Sidley in 89', was not offered to return for a second summer, took a summer intern job at Hopkins & Sutter, and probably did not get an offer there either -- unless he can account for his time away from legal practice.  Hopkins paid a top tier salary, so I doubt that he would turn that down if he was offered it.