Sumith Prasad
Netflix’s biographical drama film ‘Hillbilly Elegy’ ends with J.D. Vance securing an interview opportunity at the reputed lawyer Phillip Roseman’s firm Gaston Hamburg. Since he needs a job to fund his tuition, J.D. responds that he will attend the interview despite being away in Middletown, Ohio. He tries to find a way to admit his mother, Beverly “Bev” Vance, at a rehab center so that he can return to New Haven for the meeting. Even though the interview with Roseman is a significant part of the movie, there is no evidence to state that the attorney and his firm exist in reality, as the film depicts!
Phillip Roseman’s Gaston Hamburg: A Fictional Representative of Several Real Law Firms
Phillip Roseman and his law firm, Gaston Hamburg, are fictional. In J.D. Vance’s memoir ‘Hillbilly Elegy,’ there’s no mention of such a reputed lawyer and his business. In the film adaptation, the law student receives the interview call while he is in Middletown, Ohio, taking care of his mother, Bev, after the latter fell off the wagon. In his real life, such an incident did indeed occur. Lindsay, his sister, called him to inform him that their mother had started using drugs again. Since he couldn’t even book a room over the phone, he rushed to his hometown, but not from New Haven.
This real-life incident did not happen when J.D. was looking for a job. By this time, he had already graduated from Yale, became a “member of the bar in good standing,” and married Usha Chilukuri. When the call arrived, he was in Cincinnati, Ohio, with his family, rather than in New Haven, looking for a way to find a job that would help him pay his fees. “I tried to call a Middletown hotel and give them my credit card information. […] But they wouldn’t accept my card over the phone, so at eleven P.M. on a Tuesday night, I drove from Cincinnati to Middletown [about an hour’s drive each way] to keep Mom from homelessness,” reads the politician’s memoir.
As a law student attending Yale, J.D. had to attend interviews arranged by several reputed law firms. The fictional Gaston Hamburg can be seen as a representative of these businesses. The dinner party, during which J.D. meets Roseman for the first time, took place in reality as well. In the film, he takes part in the dinner because he wants to see Roseman specifically. In reality, he was at the party because a law firm he interviewed for, Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher, LLP, invited him. The same firm is the only one that is mentioned by name in J.D.’s book.
Gaston Hamburg is not based on Gibson Dunn, especially because J.D.’s interview with the latter firm took place even before the opulent dinner party he attended. However, the author describes it as one of the firms he “most coveted.” Headquartered in Los Angeles, California, it is a law firm with 1900 lawyers working in 21 countries. With a recorded revenue of $3.07 billion in 2023, it is one of the most prominent players in litigation and appellate law globally. J.D. never worked for Gibson Dunn. His first private practice was at Sidley Austin, another multinational law firm whose alumni include former President Barack Obama.
Vanessa Taylor, who wrote ‘Hillbilly Elegy’ based on J.D.’s memoir, must have conceived his fictional interview with Roseman to raise stakes in the narrative. His overnight drive back to New Haven for the interview is tense, and its fulfillment offers a resolution, with which the film concludes.
Read More: Hillbilly Elegy Ending, Explained
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