What's a president to do after office?

President Barack Obama shares much in common with that other lanky lawyer from Illinois, former President Abraham Lincoln. Like Lincoln, Obama relocated to 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue and never sold his house on Cottonwood Drive in Chicago. Lincoln fully expected to return to his home at 8th and Jackson Street in Springfield and "go on practicing law as if nothing happened." The day before he left for Washington he stopped by the office to reminisce with his young partner, Billy Herndon, and advised him that he expected his share of fee splits from the accounts receivable, as well as from the estates that would be probated. He told Herndon to leave the Lincoln & Herndon sign on the door and make sure he laid off the booze.

Obama's only stated retirement plans are to sleep for six straight months and reside in a rented mansion on Embassy Row until his younger daughter Sasha packs up for college. What happens after that is anyone's guess about what America's most prominent middle-aged lawyer might do. Technically, he has retired from the Illinois bar to avoid paying dues and taking CLE courses, but getting reinstated requires nothing more than writing a check and licking a stamp, if he remembers how to do either. He's resigned his nontenure track position as a senior lecturer at the University of Chicago Law School, but they'll probably let him back in the faculty lounge because he'll be building his presidential library down the block.

History affords Mr. Obama little career guidance because only six ex-presidents since 1897 have been lawyers, and two them, former Presidents Richard Nixon and Bill Clinton, resigned rather than face disbarment. One, former President William Taft, served as a neutral, a professor and as chief justice. Former Presidents Woodrow Wilson, Calvin Coolidge and Gerald Ford all took it easy.

The first lawyer-president to fret about making a postpresidential living was former President Millard Fillmore, who was only 52 when he left office and had not acquired an estate large enough to guarantee that his wife Abigail would live in comfort if she long outlived him. "It is a national disgrace that our Presidents after having occupied the highest position in the country, should be cast adrift, and, perhaps be compelled to keep a corner grocery for subsistence." He could have accepted a sinecure as a bank president in title only, but he considered that unseemly. Fillmore was spared further worry when Abigail attended the rain-soaked inauguration of his successor Franklin Pierce, a trial lawyer who loved the sound of his own voice. Abigail caught a cold and died within a month. Fillmore later married a wealthy widow and signed a prenuptial agreement limiting his interest in her money to a salary in exchange for managing her affairs. On a trip to Europe he learned that editor and former nemesis Horace Greeley was imprisoned in Paris for skipping out on a hotel bill. His entire postpresidential legal career consisted of bailing Greeley out.

Former President Grover Cleveland was only 50 and had recently started a family when he was voted out after one term. Thanks to a sex scandal, his name and that of his father in law had been dragged through the mud in his home town of Buffalo, and his political pals had turned on him because he was stingy when it came to patronage. He described Buffalo as "the place I hate above all else" and opted to move to New York City. He became of counsel at Bangs, Stetson, Tracy and McVeigh, whose biggest client was J.P. Morgan. It's now known as Davis, Polk & Wardwell. While there he argued Peake v. New Orleans, a Supreme Court case about mud. The two justices he had appointed refused to recuse themselves, but he lost anyway. When his second term ended he collected a princely salary as the president of the National Association of Presidents of Life Insurance Companies.

Former President Benjamin Harrison, a bad president, was easily the most successful lawyer ever to hold the job. He had no reservations about returning to practice and charging huge fees for his services, in no small measure because he had remarried his widow's niece and started a second family at age 63. He charged $19,000 to handle a will contest in Richmond, Indiana, and $25,000 for representing the Indianapolis Street Railway. Leland Stanford's heirs paid him well to deliver a series of lectures at Stanford Law School. While strolling across campus, he happened upon a college baseball game and decided to catch a few innings. The student ticket taker had to inform him politely that seats were not free and that he was crashing the gate. His name was Herbert Hoover.

Like Cleveland, Harrison also argued before the Supreme Court but did Grover one better by arguing before three justices that owed him their jobs. Eventually he stumbled upon a niche that allowed him to make use of his legal and political chops without appearing ethically challenged. He participated in international arbitrations. Venezuela hired him to appear before a panel in Paris when the British backslid on a promise to concede lands in Guyana. The discovery of gold had changed their minds. The queen's representative wired home advising her to expect bad news, but the arbitrators cut the baby in half and gave the better half to the Brits.

For a while, it looked like the Cleveland and Harrison models might hold as the standard for postpresidential lawyerly behavior, but things changed. Now, whether he has a law degree or not, the ex-president has the cushiest gig in the world.