What jobs or professional roles did Vance have between leaving the Marines and starting law school?

1. From Marine Corps to college: the transition years

Vance left the U.S. Marine Corps in 2007 after four years as a military journalist and immediately used the G.I. Bill to enroll at The Ohio State University, where he completed a Bachelor of Arts summa cum laude in political science and philosophy in 2009 — the period between discharge and law school was spent in undergraduate study rather than a separate professional career ^{[1] [6]}.

2. Did he hold jobs between military service and Yale?

Reporting consistently characterizes Vance’s post‑Marine, pre‑law‑school years as academic: he returned from Iraq, enrolled at Ohio State in 2007, and graduated in 2009 before matriculating at Yale Law School in 2010. None of the supplied sources list a distinct professional or full‑time employment role in that interval beyond being an undergraduate student supported by G.I. Bill benefits ^{[1] [6] [2]}.

3. Roles after law school — clerkships and legal practice

After receiving his JD in 2013, Vance served as a law clerk (including for Judge David Bunning of the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Kentucky) and then spent about a year in a federal clerkship before entering private practice at Sidley Austin; reporting describes this corporate‑law phase as brief, lasting less than two years overall ^{[1] [7] [8]}.

4. Pivot to venture capital and tech investing

Following his short stint as a corporate lawyer, Vance moved into venture capital. Multiple outlets say he became an investor in startups and later worked at Peter Thiel’s Mithril Capital; his own accounts and profiles credit a Yale‑era encounter (a Peter Thiel talk) as influential in prompting him to forgo a long law‑firm career for investing ^{[1] [5] [7] [2]}.

5. Writing and public profile before elective office

In parallel with investing, Vance became a public figure through his memoir Hillbilly Elegy ^[9], which amplified his visibility and helped convert a private‑sector profile into a political one before his 2022 Senate run; sources list “author” and “investor” among his post‑law‑school occupations ^{[4] [2] [10]}.

6. What the sources agree on — and where they diverge

Sources uniformly agree on the timeline: Marines (until 2007) → Ohio State undergraduate (2007–2009) → Yale Law (2010–2013) → clerkships and brief corporate law practice → venture capital/investing and authorship ^{[1] [7] [2]}. There is some variation in emphasis: institutional profiles (White House, biographies) stress his investor/author roles ^[2], while investigative/feature pieces (New York Times, Yale Daily News) elaborate on clerkships, the short law‑firm tenure, and the Yale connections that led him toward venture capital ^{[7] [11]}.

7. What the available sources do not say

Available sources do not mention any separate, named full‑time jobs or professional roles that Vance held in the period after leaving the Marines and before starting law school — that interlude is described as his time as a G.I. Bill‑supported college student at Ohio State ^{[1] [6]}. If you are asking about part‑time work, internships, or non‑publicized roles in 2007–2010, available reporting does not mention them (not found in current reporting).

8. Quick takeaway for further research

If you need granular details (exact dates of clerkships, Sidley Austin tenure length, or specific investments at Mithril), consult primary filings (financial disclosures) or the full New York Times feature and Yale Law alumni records referenced in the coverage; the supplied sources summarize roles but sometimes omit precise employment dates and duties ^{[7] [1]}.