25 out of 44 US presidents had studied law

LAHORE: If elected, Hillary Clinton would be the 26th 'Lawyer-President' of the United States, meaning thereby that 25 out of 44 or nearly 57 per cent American head of state had studied Law before winning keys to the White House, research shows, writes Sabir Shah.

With help sought from November 5, 2008 edition of the “Wall Street Journal,” here follows the list of the occupations of all American Presidents before they had entered politics: George Washington (land surveyor, farmer, plantation owner and Army Commander-in-Chief), John Adams (lawyer and farmer), Thomas Jefferson (land surveyor, writer, inventor, lawyer, architect, farmer/plantation owner, diplomat, linguist and theologian), James Madison (farmer/plantation owner), James Monroe (farmer/plantation owner, lawyer), John Quincy Adams (lawyer), Andrew Jackson (soldier (Major General) and lawyer), Martin Van Buren (lawyer), William Harrison (soldier), John Tyler (lawyer), James Polk (lawyer and plantation owner), Zachary Taylor (Army Major General), Millard Fillmore (lawyer), Franklin Pierce (lawyer), James Buchanan (lawyer and diplomat), Abraham Lincoln (land surveyor and lawyer), Andrew Johnson (soldier and tailor), Ulysses Grant (Army General), Rutherford Hayes (lawyer), James Garfield (school teacher, minister and soldier), Chester Arthur (school teacher, lawyer and collector of tariffs), Grover Cleveland (Sheriff, lawyer and assistant teacher), Benjamin Harrison (lawyer, journalist), William McKinley (lawyer and soldier), Theodore Roosevelt (Public official, rancher and soldier), William Taft (lawyer, judge, law reporter and dean of a law school), Woodrow Wilson (Lawyer, professor and President of Princeton University), Warren Harding (Newspaper publisher/editor), Calvin Coolidge (lawyer, public official, Vice President of Northampton Savings Bank), Herbert Hoover (engineer, investor), Franklin D. Roosevelt (lawyer), Harry Truman (farmer, soldier), Dwight Eisenhower (Soldier (General of the Army), President of Columbia University), John F. Kennedy (writer, Navy Lieutenant), Lyndon Johnson (teacher, Public official), Richard Nixon (lawyer, Navy Lieutenant Commander), Gerald Ford (Football player, Navy Lieutenant Commander) and lawyer), Jimmy Carter (Navy Lieutenant, peanut farmer and writer), Ronald Reagan (actor & broadcaster), George Bush Senior (Pilot, businessman, diplomat and CIA Director), Bill Clinton (Law lecturer), George Bush junior (Pilot (Texas Air National Guard) and businessman) and Barack Obama (lawyer, community organizer, lecturer). 

The 33rd US President Harry Truman, the man who had ordered to throw Atom bomb on Japan in 1945, was the only president after 1897 who did not have a college degree. However, he did study Law for two years at the Kansas City Law School, now the University of Missouri-Kansas City School of Law. President Theodore Roosevelt had left Columbia Law School before graduating.