Legal News

Meet the next Supreme Court justice

By Glen Ashman

AP source: Obama chooses Kagan for Supreme Court

WASHINGTON (AP)  ? President Barack Obama will nominate Solicitor General Elena Kagan to the Supreme Court, a person familiar with the president's thinking said Sunday night.

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Kagan had rapid ascent to high court nomination

WASHINGTON  (AP) ? Solicitor General Elena Kagan would be the first person in 38 years to join the Supreme Court without first serving as a judge. She's had a year as perhaps the next best thing.  As the Obama administration's top Supreme Court lawyer, Kagan has argued six cases before the people who will become her colleagues if she wins Senate confirmation.  In nominating Kagan to replace Justice John Paul Stevens, President Barack Obama has chosen a brilliant legal scholar with liberal views and conservative friends. Kagan, 50, already has won Senate confirmation once, after Obama nominated her to be solicitor general, the administration's top Supreme Court lawyer.  Kagan's reputation for bringing together liberals and conservatives on Harvard's notoriously fractious law school faculty appears to hold the key to her rapid rise.  As dean of the Harvard Law School, Kagan's hiring of young conservative scholars "sent a strong signal to conservative alumni that, despite her own party affiliation, she was committed to intellectual diversity and meritocracy at the law school," said Harvard alumnus and former Bush administration lawyer Brad Berenson.

Full post as published by It's (Barely) Legal on May 10, 2010 (boomark / email).