Sonia Sotomayor, a Federal judge on the New York-based 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, born to Puerto Rican parents in the Bronx, is among the top candidates under consideration for the vacancy in the US Supreme Court.
Sotomayor, who will turn 55 next month, became the first Puerto Rican woman to serve as a U.S. Circuit Court, studied at Princeton and earned her law degree from Yale in 1979. She began her career as an assistant district attorney, trying a wide range of criminal cases under longtime district attorney Robert Morgenthau. She entered private practice in 1984, and a supervisor there recommended six years later that she apply for a vacated federal seat.
President George Bush nominated Sotomayor in 1991 for the U.S. District Court, and she was confirmed the following year. In March 1995, her injunction against replacement players helped end the Major League Baseball strike. Two years later, President Clinton nominated her to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 2nd Circuit, the seat she would vacate if she were to be nominated and confirmed to replace Souter.[/lang_en]
