Reince Priebus

He would later tell the Wisconsin Business Journal that he considered entering politics instead of the law, as he'd planned. "But I saw it as a potential dead-end," he said. "I wouldn't have anything to fall back on."

Priebus attended law school at the University of Miami, where he again became student body president and earned his law degree in 1998.

During law school, Priebus interned for the Wisconsin Court of Appeals, the U.S. District Court in the southern district of Florida and the NAACP Legal Defense Fund.

Law Career

After graduating, Priebus returned home to Wisconsin. He joined the Milwaukee firm Michael Best & Friedrich in 1998, where he worked in corporate litigation. He worked his way up in the firm, becoming co-chair of the firm's local government group. In 2006, he was made partner.

Wisconsin Republican Party

While he was building his law career, Priebus made sure to stay involved in Republican politics in Wisconsin. He was elected chairman of Wisconsin Republican Party in 2007.

Republican National Commitee

The fast-rising Priebus positioned himself as one of Michael Steele's closest allies when Steele won the RNC chairmanship in 2009. Priebus was one of the first voting members to publicly throw his support behind Steele, and later managed Steele's campaign to become the first African-American RNC chair.

"The two did not know each other well when Priebus endorsed Steele for RNC chairman," The Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel reported. "But there was 'an instantaneous click,' said Steele, who said he saw Priebus as someone who shared an interest in modernizing the party and shared the experience of promoting Republicans in a state where Democrats had the upper hand."

A month later, the new chairman recruited Priebus to come to Washington to help him makeover the RNC. Priebus spent more than a year flying from Washington to Wisconsin each week to help Steele.

Priebus defended Steele throughout much of his gaffe-prone RNC tenure. But in December 2010, he announced he would quit his RNC job to challenge Steele for the chairmanship in 2011.

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