Usha Vance Says She Has 'No Idea' What She Wants Her Next Job to Be After Setting Aside Legal Career for JD and Kids
Usha Vance Says She Has 'No Idea' What She Wants Her Next Job to Be After Setting Aside Legal Career for JD and Kids
Brooke MigdonTue, June 2, 2026 at 8:34 PM UTC
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Credit: Al Drago/American Broadcasting Companies, Inc. via Getty -
Second lady Usha Vance said she's "open-minded" about her professional next steps after pausing her legal career to support her husband's vice presidential bid in 2024
She told ABC News in a wide-ranging interview on Monday, June 1, that she has "no idea" what she'd like to do next, but that the "time will come" when she resumes her professional life
Usha, who has three children with Vice President JD Vance and another on the way, was previously a Supreme Court clerk and a trial lawyer at the prestigious San Francisco law firm Munger, Tolles & Olson
Second lady Usha Vance opened up about pausing her legal career and the possibility of returning to the profession in a rare interview with ABC News Live Prime on Monday, June 1.
Usha, who is married to Vice President JD Vance, left her job as a trial lawyer at the prestigious San Francisco law firm Munger, Tolles & Olson in 2024, after President Donald Trump named JD, then a freshman senator from Ohio, as his running mate in that year’s presidential election.
“In light of today’s news, I have resigned from my position at Munger, Tolles & Olson to focus on caring for our family,” Usha said in a statement at the time. “I am forever grateful for the opportunities I’ve had at Munger and for the excellent colleagues and friends I’ve worked with over the years.”
She previously served as a law clerk for multiple federal judges, including then-Appeals Court Judge Brett Kavanaugh and Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts.
On Monday, the second lady, 40, said her legal licenses will remain on hold for now, but that the “time will come again when I’m engaged in legal practice.”
Usha also noted — when ABC's Linsey Davis asked whether she has feelings about the barrage of criticism toward the Supreme Court in recent years — that since stepping away from her legal work, she has not been keeping up as closely with the day-to-day headlines involving the high court and its justices.
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Davis probed Usha during the interview about how her future return to work might look.
“I genuinely have no idea,” the second lady said about her next steps. “The legal profession is broad and varied, and over the last couple of years — and over the next couple of years — I’ve been exposed to all sorts of really interesting ways in which you can think about legal issues, but apply them to things that I really care about.”
JD and Usha Vance at the 2024 Republican National Convention
Credit: Joe Raedle/Getty
“I’m pretty open-minded right now,” she added. “I’m sort of exploring what it is that I really care about, and trying to think about how I can bring the skills that I developed as a lawyer, and during this phase of life, to bear on it, and I’ll make a decision when the time comes.”
She hinted that her next move may expand on her efforts as second lady to improve early childhood literacy. Usha — who has three children with JD and is expecting her fourth child this summer — launched her Storytime with the Second Lady podcast in March, and announced her second annual summer reading challenge this week.
Usha told Davis on Monday that she hopes the reading challenge, rolled out in partnership with schools and libraries nationwide, will help combat summer learning loss. The program encourages children from kindergarten to eighth grade to read 12 books of their choice this summer, she said, and each participating child will be entered into a raffle to win a White House visit, among other prizes.
In her wide-ranging interview with ABC News on Monday, the second lady also touched on her husband’s possible future, saying she believes JD “would make a great anything he’d like to be.”
“I am not a particularly politically ambitious person,” she said of the possibility that JD may someday run for president, but “I would like to see him happy. I would like to see him making contributions that matter, and whatever form that takes is a form that I’ll be supportive of.”
on People
Source: “AOL Entertainment”
