Usha Vance: legal highflyer, and perhaps the next US 'Second Lady'

With J.D. Vance chosen as the Republican Party's vice presidential candidate, his wife Usha has emerged suddenly into the harsh spotlight of US politics.

A child of Indian immigrants and raised in suburban San Diego, Usha Vance, 38, is an academic highflyer and a successful lawyer who was a registered Democratic voter before changing parties.

The couple have spoken of how supportive they are to each other, and she has been loyally by her husband's side since he was unveiled as Donald Trump's running mate at the Republican convention in Milwaukee.

"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," Vance said in a 2020 interview.

Her parents are Hindu, she told Fox News in a recent interview, saying the religion helped make them "really good people."

After an undergraduate degree at Yale, Usha Vance won a scholarship that took her to Cambridge University where she earned a master's of philosophy.

She then attended Yale Law School, where she met J.D Vance. They married in Kentucky in 2014, and have three children.

After Yale, Usha clerked for Chief Justice John G. Roberts at the Supreme Court, a sought-after role for young, ambitious legal professionals.

She later became a corporate litigator at Munger, Tolles and Olson, a prestigious law firm with offices in San Francisco and Washington that has described itself as "progressive" -- in contrast to her husband's right-wing politics.

She left the firm when he became vice presidential nominee on Monday.

"In light of today's news, I have resigned... to focus on caring for our family," she said in a statement to the SFGate news website.

Whether Usha is the next "Second Lady" --  as wives of vice presidents are known in the United States -- will be decided in the November election.

"I'm not raring to change anything about our lives right now, but I believe in J.D., and I really love him, and so we'll just sort of see what happens with our life," she told Fox last month.