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Pondering a Post-Ginsburg Supreme Court: Females Need Apply

By Nathan Koppel

We wish Ruth Bader Ginbsurg, who underwent surgery yesterday for pancreatic cancer, a speedy recovery. At 75, the only female supreme court justice will hopefully have many more years on the bench.

Inevitably, though, thoughts have turned to possible successors. Here’s a story today from the WSJ’s Jess Bravin. Obama almost certainly would select a woman and likely someone who would continue Ginsburg’s approach to the law.

Here are some of the names that Bravin offers:

Harvard Dean Elena Kagan, 48, Obama’s nominee for solicitor general;

Second Circuit judge Sonia Sotomayor, a 54 Bronx native of Puerto Rican descent. Here’s an Esquire feature-ette on the judge;

Kathleen Sullivan, 53, a former dean of Stanford Law School and current partner at Quinn Emmanuel. She is also somewhat notorious for having failed the California bar on the first try, a psychic boost for all those who have run headlong into one of the toughest of all bar exams.

A few other names getting tossed around are Ninth Circuit judge Kim McLane Wardlaw and ─ in the Earl Warren, governor-cum-jurist vein ─ Jennifer Granholm, the Michigan gov.

And the Times today introduces some male prospects: Deval Patrick, the governor of Massachusetts and a POTUS pal; Harold Hongju Koh, the dean of Yale Law; and Merrick B. Garland, a federal appeals court judge in Washington.

Back to the present, SCOTUS offered few details about Ginsburg’s condition. Her attending surgeon expected her to remain hospitalized for seven to 10 days.

Full post as published by Law Blog - WSJ.com on February 06, 2009 (boomark / email).