from pprint import pprint
from xml.dom import minidom, Node

def create_tree(parent, tree, level):
    for node in parent.childNodes:
        # if it's a Textnode
        if node.nodeType == Node.TEXT_NODE:
            tree.append(node.nodeValue)
        # If it's an element:
        else:
            tree.append(create_tree(node, [], level+1))
    return tree

doc = minidom.parseString('<ul><li>example.com<ul><li>Company<ul><li>History</li><li>Our people<ul><li>John</li><li>Mary</li><li>Pat</li></ul></li><li>Careers<ul><li>Current openings</li><li>Working at example.com</li></ul></li></ul></li><li>Services<ul><li>Web development</li><li>Print design</li><li>Identity and branding</li></ul></li><li>Contact us</li><li>Privacy Policy</li></ul></li></ul>')
pprint(create_tree(doc.documentElement, [], 0))

####

~/toy/etc$ python recurse.py 
[[u'example.com',
  [[u'Company',
    [[u'History'],
     [u'Our people', [[u'John'], [u'Mary'], [u'Pat']]],
     [u'Careers', [[u'Current openings'], [u'Working at example.com']]]]],
   [u'Services',
    [[u'Web development'], [u'Print design'], [u'Identity and branding']]],
   [u'Contact us'],
   [u'Privacy Policy']]]]