Not easily pigeonholed, Sotomayor has also been part of rulings that go the other way.

In general, her rulings as a trial judge for six years and then as an appeals court judge since 1998 are in line with the liberal-leaning views of Justice David Souter, the man President Barack Obama has nominated her to replace.

Sotomayor’s record indicates that her confirmation would not seriously alter the balance of power on a court that often splits along conservative and liberal lines on social issues.

Her opinions are clearly written and thorough, although she does not write with much flair. Sotomayor has been criticized by some conservatives for saying in a talk at Duke University that appeals court judges make policy, but her writings typically do not stray from the law.

Among the most contentious social issues is abortion, but Sotomayor has not been part of any major rulings on abortion rights. In 2002, she wrote an opinion ruling against an abortion rights group that had challenged a government policy prohibiting foreign organizations receiving U.S. funds from performing or supporting abortions.

In her opinion on the so-called gag rule, Sotomayor wrote that the government was free to favor the anti-abortion position when public funds were involved. President Barack Obama lifted the rule soon after he took office in January.

Abortion opponents reacted strongly against Sotomayor’s nomination Tuesday. Charmaine Yoest, president of Americans United for Life, called Sotomayor “a radical pick that divides America.”

The most controversial civil rights lawsuit of her time as a judge concerns the race discrimination claims of white firefighters in New Haven, Conn., a case the Supreme Court will decide in the next month.

In a one-paragraph opinion, she and two other judges on the 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in New York upheld a lower court ruling dismissing the firefighters’ claims. The case turns on promotion exams that the city threw out on the grounds that too few minorities scored high enough to be promoted.

The high court accepted the firefighters’ appeals and, at argument in late April, appeared divided along ideological lines. The court is expected to rule by late June.

In many other discrimination cases, Sotomayor has sided with plaintiffs, including a black elementary school student who claimed his demotion from first grade to kindergarten was racial discrimination. Sotomayor, in a 1999 dissent, said that white children in similar situations received help, while the black child was not given an “equal chance.”

She has favored claims brought by disabled people, those alleging age discrimination and women who said they were in hostile work environments. Yet she also said an international treaty governing air travel ruled out discrimination claims made by two African-American passengers.

In a religious freedom case, Sotomayor backed two New York state prison inmates in 1994 who practiced the religion Santeria and challenged a prison rule that banned them from wearing multicolored religious beads.

Sotomayor, ruling that the pair could wear the beads under their clothing, criticized as intolerable “distinctions which favor ‘traditional’ over ‘nontraditional’ religions.”

She also struck down a White Plains, N.Y., law preventing the display of religious symbols such as a 9-foot-high menorah in a city park.

A former prosecutor, Sotomayor has frequently ruled against criminal defendants, including a sex offender who violated his parole by having in his apartment a book containing pictures and descriptions of sex between men and boys.

The Supreme Court in January essentially endorsed a 10-year-old pro-police position Sotomayor took in a case involving the search of a criminal suspect. In the high court case, the four liberal justices dissented.

But Sotomayor was reversed in an environmental case the Supreme Court decided in April. She supported environmentalists in ruling that the Clean Water Act does not allow cost to be used when deciding what technology would best minimize environmental impacts. Souter’s view paralleled that of Sotomayor when the case reached the Supreme Court. There, the justices overturned Sotomayor’s ruling, with Souter in the minority in a 6-3 decision.

The justices are considering whether to hear a case in which Sotomayor and two other judges upheld a New York state law banning the possession of “chuka sticks.” At issue is whether the Second Amendment’s guarantee of a personal right to have a gun restricts the power of state and local governments to regulate personal weapons.

The appellate judges said they were bound by an 1886 Supreme Court ruling, but acknowledged the high court could take a different view, particularly in light of last year’s ruling that the Second Amendment protects an individual’s right to keep guns at home for self-defense.

Sotomayor would have to step aside from the case if she is confirmed and it comes before the court.

Souter spoke at an annual conference of judges and lawyers from Delaware, New Jersey and Pennsylvania. Souter handles matters that come to the Supreme Court from those states. The 69-year-old justice announced last Friday that he will retire when the court finishes its work for the summer and return to his home in New Hampshire.

Momentarily dropping his New England reserve, the justice appeared to choke up as he recalled asking his predecessor, William Brennan, if he wanted to send a message to the same group when Souter was preparing to attend his first conference in Teaneck, N.J.

“Just give them my love, David. Just give them my love,” Souter remembered. “That goes for me, too.”

He received sustained standing ovations before and after his 15-minute talk, and was introduced by Chief Judge Anthony J. Scirica of the Philadelphia-based 3rd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals as a “beloved member of the 3rd Circuit family.”

Souter said he had not intended for the news of his retirement to break before Tuesday’s event. “I swear to you I was not the leak,” he said.

Still, he said, “It’s impossible not to be doing a mental reckoning of some sort.”

He gave a lighthearted account of the first conference after he joined the court in 1990, noting that he apparently was viewed with some suspicion by the 3rd Circuit. Among the reading material he was given when he arrived at that first conference was a copy of the Constitution.

Souter thanked Scirica for not including the Constitution for this visit. “He may have assumed that it’s too late now,” Souter said.

Souter said members of the legal profession should take satisfaction in doing “something worth doing” and trying “to do it well.”

He did not permit cameras or audio recordings at his speech Tuesday.

In Washington, the White House said that President Barack Obama will not be announcing his choice to replace Souter this week.

Presidential spokesman Robert Gibbs ruled out that time frame when asked about published comments of Sen. Orrin Hatch, R-Utah. Hatch, a member of the Senate Judiciary Committee, had been quoted as saying that he would be surprised if Obama’s announcement of a nominee did not happen this week.

Said Gibbs flatly: “It’s not going to happen this week.”

Hatch and Obama spoke Monday about the president’s process for announcing a nominee for Souter’s seat.

Obama wants to have his eventual nominee confirmed and in place for the Supreme Court session that will begin in October.

“The president is free to nominate whomever he likes,” said Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky. “But picking judges based on his or her perceived sympathy for certain groups or individuals undermines the faith Americans have in our judicial system.”

McConnell’s Republicans are turning to a conservative Southerner as their point man on Obama’s nominee, signaling that they won’t shy away from a protracted fight despite risks of being cast as obstructionist.

Sen. Jeff Sessions’ ascension as the top Republican on the Senate Judiciary Committee comes more than 20 years after the panel rejected him for his own federal judgeship during the Reagan administration over concerns that he was hostile toward civil rights and was racially insensitive.

Coincidentally, Sessions, R-Ala., replaces Sen. Arlen Specter of Pennsylvania, a moderate who was one of just two Republicans in 1986 to oppose Sessions as a U.S. district court judge. Specter left the GOP last week to become a Democrat, creating the vacancy atop the committee just as Justice David Souter announced his retirement.

The choice of Sessions has excited conservatives who see him as a sharp lawyer with well-established legal views after a career as a prosecutor and Alabama attorney general.

“Any nominee must understand that the role of a justice is to be a neutral umpire of the law, calling the balls and strikes fairly while avoiding the temptation to make policy or legislate from the bench based on personal political views,” Sessions said in a statement Tuesday. “We must return to our original understanding that policy-making is reserved to the political branches and that courts serve the limited, but essential, role of disposing of cases and controversies based on a fair construction of the Constitution.”

Sheldon Goldman, a political scientist at the University of Massachusetts at Amherst, agreed that Sessions has a firm grasp on the issues but said making Sessions “the face of the party” for the Supreme Court nomination might not play well symbolically.

Goldman, who has written a book on judicial nominations, said Specter’s defection resulted in part from the perception that the GOP has moved too far right.

“And instead of responding to that by placing a moderate as the ranking Republican, they go for a very conservative Southern Republican who represents everything that has driven Specter and other moderate Republicans out of the party,” Goldman said.

Sessions is among the most conservative senators, taking hard-line positions on issues such as immigration and affirmative action.

His nomination as a judge two decades ago ran into trouble when civil rights groups complained that he had pursued politically motivated voter-fraud charges against black leaders as a U.S. attorney in south Alabama. Others came forward to say he had made racially insensitive comments, including calling groups like the NAACP “un-American” and agreeing with someone else’s statement that a white civil rights lawyer was “a disgrace to his race.”

Sessions said the comments were taken out of context or fabricated. He and his supporters argued that Democrats were using the allegations to reject Sessions over honest ideological differences.

Sessions, from Mobile, later was elected Alabama’s attorney general in 1995 before winning his Senate seat in 1996.

“It’s a thrill as someone who spent 15 years full-time in federal courts to have this opportunity,” he said.

He said any nominee is entitled to a fair hearing but also should expect “probing questions,” and he did not rule out a Republican-led filibuster under the right circumstances.

Meanwhile, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., said he doesn’t expect a Republican filibuster. Democrats already have nearly enough votes to defeat that.

Reid paid tribute to Obama’s past experience as a law professor Tuesday and said he’s confident he’ll send a very qualified nominee to the Senate.

He said on NBC’s “Today” show he hopes Obama goes outside the existing legal system and finds a former governor or senator, or someone who has “real life experiences.”

Reid said that “I feel comfortable that his choice will be as good as his Cabinet choices.”

Sessions, who was confirmed for the new post Tuesday, is technically fourth in line in seniority on Judiciary, but the others are either restricted under committee term limits or would have to give up top positions on other panels to take the Judiciary spot.

Under an arrangement worked out to prevent a turf battle, Sessions is expected to keep the Judiciary post only through the end of next year. Sen. Charles Grassley of Iowa would then take the top GOP post at Judiciary, and Sessions could become lead Republican on the Senate Budget Committee.

The makeup of the Supreme Court affects every corner of American lives, because the decisions the court makes affect us all – from whether we can be arrested while having private consensual sex to what actions we can and can’t take against our government.

David Souter was nominated in 1990 by President George Bush Sr. – but as the Court has swung to the right (Alito, Roberts, Thomas) he has become a reliable, moderate voice.

Souter voted with the majority in the 1996 Romer v. Evans, which held that a Colorado amendment forbidding any municipality from protecting gays and lesbians from discrimination was unconstitutional. He also voted with the majority on the 2003 Lawrence v. Texas, which invalidated sodomy laws. In the 2000 Boy Scouts of America v. Dale, the Court held that the Scouts couln’t be compelled to accept a gay Scoutmaster. But Souter voted with the dissent, which said that “The law broadly protects the opportunity of all persons to obtain the advantages and privileges of any place of public accommodation.”

In short, on the main gay rights cases that were before the U.S. Supreme Court during his tenure, Souter was on our side.

Obama is likely to replace this moderate judge with another moderate judge. Odds are that the new judge will be a woman, since there’s currently only one, Ruth Bader Ginsburg, on the court.

NEXT PAGE: A lesbian on the Court?

(Washington) Court watchers think President Barack Obama will choose a woman for his first nomination to the Supreme Court, where only one of nine seats is held by a female – Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg.

With Justice David Souter expected to retire this year, here are the some of the people who are likely to get some consideration from the White House:

Kathleen Sullivan, former dean of Stanford Law School.

Born in 1955 in Sault Ste. Marie, Mich. Received law degree from Harvard University in 1981. Openly gay. Worked as law professor at Harvard University from 1984-1993. Worked as law professor at Stanford University from 1993-1999. Served as dean of Stanford law school from 1999-2004. Works as law professor at Stanford University. Was involved in legal teams fighting for LGBT rights before the US Supreme Court including  Bowers v. Hardwick in 1986 where the court upheld Georgia’s criminal sodomy law and in 2003 Lawrence v. Texas where the court overturned sodomy laws.

Ruben Castillo of the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Illinois.

Born in 1954 in Chicago. Nominated by President Bill Clinton for the U.S. District Court in 1994. Received law degree from Northwestern University in 1979. Worked as a lawyer in private practice in Chicago 1979-1984 and 1991-1994. Worked as assistant U.S. attorney in Chicago from 1984-1988. Worked as regional counsel for the Mexican American Legal Defense Fund 1988-1991. Serves as commissioner on the U.S. Sentencing Commission.

Merrick B. Garland of the U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit.

Born in Chicago in 1952. Nominated to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit in 1997 by President Bill Clinton. Received law degree from Harvard University in 1977. Clerked for Supreme Court Justice William Brennan 1978-1979. Worked as special assistant U.S. attorney general, 1979-1981. Worked in private practice in Washington, D.C., 1981-1989 and 1992-1993. Worked as assistant U.S. attorney for the District of Columbia 1989-1992. Worked as deputy assistant attorney general in the Justice Department’s criminal division, 1993-1994. Worked as principal associate deputy U.S. attorney general, 1994-1997.

Michigan Gov. Jennifer Granholm.

Born in 1959 in Vancouver, British Columbia. Received law degree from Harvard University in 1987. Worked as a full-time aide, Michigan campaign for presidential candidate Michael Dukakis, 1988. Worked as executive assistant for criminal justice issues in the Wayne County executive office, 1988-89. Worked as a prosecutor in the U.S. attorney’s office in Detroit, 1990-1995. Worked as Wayne County, Mich., corporation counsel, 1995-1998. Worked as Michigan attorney general, 1999-2002. Became Michigan governor, January 2003.

Elena Kagan, U.S. solicitor general.

Born in 1960 in New York City. Nominated for Solicitor General by President Barack Obama. Received a law degree from Harvard Law School in 1986. Worked as a law clerk to Supreme Court Justice Thurgood Marshall from 1987-1988. Worked in private practice in Washington, D.C. from 1989-1991 and as professor at University of Chicago law school from 1991-1995. Associate counsel to President Bill Clinton 1995-1996, deputy assistant to Clinton for domestic policy and deputy director of the Domestic Policy Council from 1997-1999. Nominated to the U.S Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit in 1999 but never received a hearing from the Senate Judiciary Committee. Professor at Harvard Law School since 1999, and dean of the Harvard Law School since 2003.

Pamela S. Karlan, law professor at Stanford University

Born in 1959. Received law degree from Yale University in 1984. Worked as clerk to Justice Harry A. Blackmun, 1985-1986. Worked as assistant counsel at the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund, 1986-1988. Worked as law professor at University of Virginia from 1988-1998. Works as law professor at Stanford University and co-founded the Stanford Law School Supreme Court Litigation Clinic.

Harold Hongju Koh, dean of the Yale University Law School

Born in Boston in 1954. Nominated to be legal adviser to the State Department. Received law degree from Harvard University. Served as law clerk for Justice Harry Blackmun 1981-1982. Private practice in Washington, D.C. 1982-83. Worked in the Office of Legal Counsel at the Justice Department 1983-1985. Worked as law professor at Yale University 1985-1998, 2001-2004. Worked as assistant secretary of state for democracy, human right and labor, 1998-2001. Became Yale law school dean in 2001-present.

Sandra Lea Lynch, chief judge of the 1st U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals.

Born in 1946 in Oak Park, Ill. Nominated to the 1st U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals by President Bill Clinton on January 11, 1995, and confirmed by the Senate on March 17, 1995. Became chief judge in 2008. Received law degree from Boston University School of Law in 1971. Became an assistant state attorney general in Massachusetts and taught at Boston University Law School from 1973-1974. Worked as lawyer for the Massachusetts Department of Education from 1974-1978. Went into private practice in Boston from 1978-1995, while also serving as special counsel for the state Judicial Conduct Commission from 1990-1992.

M. Margaret McKeown of the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals

Born in 1951 in Casper, Wyo. Confirmed to the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in 1998 after being nominated by President Bill Clinton. Received law degree from Georgetown University in 1975. Worked in private practice in Seattle from 1975-1998. Worked as a White House fellow and special assistant to the secretary of the Interior Department from 1980-1981.

Massachusetts Gov. Deval Patrick.

Born in 1956 in Chicago. Received law degree from Harvard University in 1982. Worked as lawyer for NAACP Legal Defense Fund, 1983 to 1986. Worked in private practice, 1986 to 1994 and in 1997. Worked as assistant attorney general for civil rights at the Justice Department, 1994. Worked as chairman of Texaco Inc.’s Equality and Fairness Task Force, 1997. Worked as vice president and general counsel for Texaco Inc., 1999. Worked as executive vice president and general counsel for The Coca-Cola Co., 2001 to 2004. Became Massachusetts governor, 2006.

Johnnie B. Rawlinson of the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals

Born in 1952 in Concord, N.C. Nominated by President Bill Clinton for the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco. Nominated for the U.S. District Court by President Clinton in 1998. Received a law degree from University of the Pacific in 1979. Worked in private practice in Las Vegas 1979-1980 and as a staff attorney for Nevada Legal Services in 1980. Worked for the Office of the District Attorney, Clark County, Nev. from 1980-1998 serving as deputy district attorney, chief deputy district attorney and assistant district attorney.

Leah Ward Sears, chief justice of the Georgia Supreme Court.

Born in 1955 in Heidelberg, Germany. Appointed to the Georgia Supreme Court in February 1992 by Georgia Gov. Zell Miller. Became chief justice of the Georgia Supreme Court in June 2005. Has announced plans to retire from the Georgia Supreme Court in June 2009. Graduated from Emory University School of Law in 1980 and from the University of Virginia School of Law in 1995 with a master’s of law degree. Worked in private practice in Atlanta from 1980-1985. Became a judge in Atlanta’s city traffic court in 1985, and was a state Superior Court judge from 1988-1992.

Sonia Sotomayor of the 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals.

Born in 1954 in the Bronx, N.Y. Nominated as a federal judge by President George H.W. Bush on November 27, 1991, and confirmed by the Senate on August 11, 1992. Nominated by President Bill Clinton to the 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals on June 25, 1997, and confirmed by the Senate on October 2, 1998. Graduated from Yale Law School in 1979, and worked in private practice as a lawyer in New York City from 1984-1992 before joining the New York County District Attorney’s Office, where she served as assistant district attorney from 1979-1984. She then returned to private practice in New York City from 1984-1992.

Cass Sunstein, University of Chicago law professor.

Born in 1954. Received law degree from Harvard University in 1978. Clerked for Justice Thurgood Marshall 1979-1980. Worked in Office of Legal Counsel at the Justice Department 1980-1981. Worked as law professor at the University of Chicago from 1981-2008. Nominated by President Barack Obama recently to head the White House Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs.

Kim McLane Wardlaw of the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals.

Born in 1954 in San Francisco. Nominated as a federal judge by President Bill Clinton on August 10, 1995, and confirmed by the Senate on December 22, 1995. Nominated to the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals by President Clinton on January 27, 1998, and confirmed by the Senate on July 31, 1998. Graduated from UCLA Law School in 1979 and worked in private practice as a lawyer in Los Angeles from 1980-1995. Worked for President Clinton’s Justice Department transition team from 1992-1993 and for Los Angeles Mayor Richard Riordan’s mayoral transition committee in 1993.

Diane Pamela Wood of the 7th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals.

Born in 1950 in Plainfield, N.J. Nominated to the 7th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals by President Bill Clinton on March 31, 1995, and confirmed by the Senate on June 30, 1995. Received a law degree from the University of Texas School of Law in 1975. Clerked for Supreme Court Justice Harry Blackmun from 1976-1977. Worked as a lawyer adviser in the State Department’s Office of the Legal Adviser from 1977-1978. Worked in private practice in Washington, D.C. from 1978-1980 before teaching at Georgetown University from 1980-1981. Worked as a professor at the University of Chicago from 1981-1995, where she also served as associate dean from 1989-1992. Worked at the Justice Department as special assistant to the associate attorney general from 1985-1987, and as the Antitrust Division’s deputy assistant attorney general for international, appellate and policy matters from 1993-1995.

Political battles over new justices tend to center on those types of social issues far more than on economic and foreign affairs, which have dominated the opening months of Obama’s administration.

Some liberals have criticized Obama for postponing efforts to revamp immigration laws, protect access to abortion and allow gays to serve openly in the military. The president has taken the heat from his political base, hoping to avoid getting bogged down on a volatile issue early in his term, as President Bill Clinton did on the question of gays in the military.

The strategy has worked so far. Even the grumbling liberals are, on balance, happy to have Obama in the White House after eight years of Republican George W. Bush. And the economic distress has preoccupied Congress and the general public.

But the process to replace retiring Supreme Court Justice David Souter could pump new oxygen into national debates over abortion, immigration, minority rights, limits to privacy and other matters.

“There’s no doubt these debates are coming back,” said Matt Bennett, vice president of the centrist Democratic group Third Way. They might create more noise than suspense, he said, because there is little doubt that the Democratic-dominated Senate will confirm Obama’s eventual choice. Liberal activists will “fall in line” even if they are not entirely satisfied with the administration’s progress on their pet issues, Bennett said.

Obama has tried to push several of these social issues to the political background. At his news conference Wednesday, he said a bill important to abortion-rights advocates is not his highest priority. Access to abortion must be protected, he said, but “the most important thing we can do to tamp down some of the anger surrounding this issue is to focus on those areas that we can agree on.”

He was similarly noncommittal on immigration, which his aides see as one of the most difficult and emotional issues around. As a candidate, Obama said the nation must devise a way to help millions of illegal immigrants achieve legal status if they follow certain guidelines. But he has been mostly silent on the subject since his election. On Wednesday, he suggested he’s at the mercy of a slow-moving Congress, which has proved unable to agree about immigration for years.

“Ultimately, I don’t have control of the legislative calendar,” Obama said, “and so we’re going to work with legislative leaders to see what we can do.”

A Supreme Court nomination process threatens to amplify criticisms of Obama from liberals. Relatively few have added their voices so far to critics from the right. But those who have spoken out are likely to get more attention, and perhaps more support.

Some gay rights groups, for example, are unhappy that the administration is moving at a snail’s pace on efforts to replace the military’s “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy with one that lets gay people serve openly in the armed services.

Richard Socarides, a New York lawyer who advised Clinton on gay rights, wrote in Saturday’s Washington Post that Obama is erring by “waiting for some magical ‘right time’ to move boldly,” and now is “a uniquely opportune moment to act.”

Over a range of issues, Socarides wrote, “the Obama administration has shown a willingness to exploit this change moment to bring about dramatic reform. So why not on gay rights?”

On immigration, some mainstream Democratic activists have joined Latino groups in urging Obama to get the legislative process moving soon. Simon Rosenberg, president of the New Democrat Network, says there are several reasons to tackle the difficult issue this year. They include better pay scales for blue-collar workers if employers cannot exploit illegal immigrants, and better U.S. relations with Latin American countries.

Several liberal groups are dismayed that the Obama administration tried to block a lawsuit alleging that Bush broke the law when he authorized warrantless domestic spying on terrorism suspects. It was the second time that Obama officials, echoing the Bush administration, argued that the “state secrets privilege” trumped federal law in national security matters.

At his news conference Wednesday, Obama said he would like to change the state secrets privilege, but he asked for more time.

A Supreme Court confirmation battle, with televised Senate hearings, could energize liberal activists on all these fronts.

With Democrats now controlling the White House and Congress, conservative groups are almost certain to be loud and active in the upcoming debate. It might help them raise money, some Democrats say, but it won’t necessarily advance their political agenda.

With Justice David Souter expected to retire this year, here are the some of the people who are likely to get some consideration from the White House:

Sonia Sotomayor of the 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals.

- Born in 1954 in the Bronx, N.Y. Nominated as a federal judge by President George H.W. Bush on November 27, 1991, and confirmed by the Senate on August 11, 1992. Nominated by President Bill Clinton to the 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals on June 25, 1997, and confirmed by the Senate on October 2, 1998. Graduated from Yale Law School in 1979, and worked in private practice as a lawyer in New York City from 1984-1992 before joining the New York County District Attorney’s Office, where she served as assistant district attorney from 1979-1984. She then returned to private practice in New York City from 1984-1992.

Kim McLane Wardlaw of the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals.

- Born in 1954 in San Francisco. Nominated as a federal judge by President Bill Clinton on August 10, 1995, and confirmed by the Senate on December 22, 1995. Nominated to the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals by President Clinton on January 27, 1998, and confirmed by the Senate on July 31, 1998. Graduated from UCLA Law School in 1979 and worked in private practice as a lawyer in Los Angeles from 1980-1995. Worked for President Clinton’s Justice Department transition team from 1992-1993 and for Los Angeles Mayor Richard Riordan’s mayoral transition committee in 1993.

Leah Ward Sears, chief justice of the Georgia Supreme Court.

- Born in 1955 in Heidelberg, Germany. Appointed to the Georgia Supreme Court in February 1992 by Georgia Gov. Zell Miller. Became chief justice of the Georgia Supreme Court in June 2005. Has announced plans to retire from the Georgia Supreme Court in June 2009. Graduated from Emory University School of Law in 1980 and from the University of Virginia School of Law in 1995 with a master’s of law degree. Worked in private practice in Atlanta from 1980-1985. Became a judge in Atlanta’s city traffic court in 1985, and was a state Superior Court judge from 1988-1992.

Sandra Lea Lynch, chief judge of the 1st U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals.

- Born in 1946 in Oak Park, Ill. Nominated to the 1st U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals by President Bill Clinton on January 11, 1995, and confirmed by the Senate on March 17, 1995. Became chief judge in 2008. Received law degree from Boston University School of Law in 1971. Became an assistant state attorney general in Massachusetts and taught at Boston University Law School from 1973-1974. Worked as lawyer for the Massachusetts Department of Education from 1974-1978. Went into private practice in Boston from 1978-1995, while also serving as special counsel for the state Judicial Conduct Commission from 1990-1992.

Diane Pamela Wood of the 7th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals.

- Born in 1950 in Plainfield, N.J. Nominated to the 7th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals by President Bill Clinton on March 31, 1995, and confirmed by the Senate on June 30, 1995. Received a law degree from the University of Texas School of Law in 1975. Clerked for Supreme Court Justice Harry Blackmun from 1976-1977. Worked as a lawyer adviser in the State Department’s Office of the Legal Adviser from 1977-1978. Worked in private practice in Washington, D.C. from 1978-1980 before teaching at Georgetown University from 1980-1981. Worked as a professor at the University of Chicago from 1981-1995, where she also served as associate dean from 1989-1992. Worked at the Justice Department as special assistant to the associate attorney general from 1985-1987, and as the Antitrust Division’s deputy assistant attorney general for international, appellate and policy from 1993-1995.

Elena Kagan, U.S. Solicitor General.

- Born in 1960 in New York City. Nominated for Solicitor General by President Barack Obama. Received a law degree from Harvard Law School in 1986. Worked as a law clerk to Supreme Court Justice Thurgood Marshall from 1987-1988. Worked in private practice in Washington, D.C. from 1989-1991 and as professor at University of Chicago law school from 1991-1995. Associate counsel to President Bill Clinton 1995-1996, deputy assistant to Clinton for domestic policy and deputy director of the Domestic Policy Council from 1997-1999. Nominated to the U.S Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit in 1999 but never received a hearing from the Senate Judiciary Committee. Professor at Harvard Law School since 1999, and dean of the Harvard Law School since 2003.

Johnnie B. Rawlinson of the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals

- Born in 1952 in Concord, N.C. Nominated by President Bill Clinton for the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco. Nominated for the U.S. District Court by President Clinton in 1998. Received a law degree from University of the Pacific in 1979. Worked in private practice in Las Vegas 1979-1980 and as a staff attorney for Nevada Legal Services in 1980. Worked for the Office of the District Attorney, Clark County, Nev. from 1980-1998 serving as deputy district attorney, chief deputy district attorney and assistant district attorney.

- Ruben Castillo of the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Illinois.

Born in 1954 in Chicago. Nominated by President Bill Clinton for the U.S. District Court in 1994. Received law degree from Northwestern University in 1979. Worked as a lawyer in private practice in Chicago 1979-1984 and 1991-1994. Worked as assistant U.S. attorney in Chicago from 1984-1988. Worked as regional counsel for the Mexican American Legal Defense Fund 1988-1991. Serves as commissioner on the U.S. Sentencing Commission.

- Merrick B. Garland of the U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit.

Born in Chicago in 1952. Nominated to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit in 1997 by President Bill Clinton. Received law degree from Harvard University in 1977. Clerked for Supreme Court Justice William Brennan 1978-1979. Worked as special assistant U.S. attorney general, 1979-1981. Worked in private practice in Washington, D.C., 1981-1989 and 1992-1993. Worked as assistant U.S. attorney for the District of Columbia 1989-1992. Worked as deputy assistant attorney general in the Justice Department’s criminal division, 1993-1994. Worked as principal associate deputy U.S. attorney general, 1994-1997.

- M. Margaret McKeown of the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals

Born in 1951 in Casper, Wyo. Confirmed to the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in 1998 after being nominated by President Bill Clinton. Received law degree from Georgetown University in 1975. Worked in private practice in Seattle from 1975-1998. Worked as a White House fellow and special assistant to the secretary of the Interior Department from 1980-1981.

- Pamela S. Karlan, law professor at Stanford University

Received law degree from Yale University in 1984. Worked as clerk to Justice Harry A. Blackmun, 1985-1986. Worked as assistant counsel at the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund, 1986-1988. Worked as law professor at University of Virginia from 1988-1998. Works as law professor at Stanford University and co-founded the Stanford Law School Supreme Court Litigation Clinic.

- Harold Hongju Koh, dean of the Yale University Law School

Born in Boston in 1954. Nominated to be legal adviser to the State Department. Received law degree from Harvard University. Served as law clerk for Justice Harry Blackmun 1981-1982. Private practice in Washington, D.C. 1982-83. Worked in the Office of Legal Counsel at the Justice Department 1983-1985. Worked as law professor at Yale University 1985-1998, 2001-2004. Worked as assistant secretary of state for democracy, human right and labor, 1998-2001. Became Yale law school dean in 2001-present.

- Kathleen Sullivan, former dean of Stanford Law School.

Born in 1955 in Sault Ste. Marie, Mich. Received law degree from Harvard University in 1981. Worked as law professor at Harvard University from 1984-1993. Worked as law professor at Stanford University from 1993-1999. Served as dean of Stanford law school from 1999-2004. Works as law professor at Stanford University.

- Cass Sunstein, University of Chicago law professor.

Born in 1954. Received law degree from Harvard University in 1978. Clerked for Justice Thurgood Marshall 1979-1980. Worked in Office of Legal Counsel at the Justice Department 1980-1981. Worked as law professor at the University of Chicago from 1981-2008. Nominated by President Barack Obama recently to head the White House Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs.

- Massachusetts Gov. Deval Patrick.

Born in 1956 in Chicago. Received law degree from Harvard University in 1982. Worked as lawyer for NAACP Legal Defense Fund, 1983 to 1986. Worked in private practice, 1986 to 1994 and in 1997. Worked as assistant attorney general for civil rights at the Justice Department, 1994. Worked as chairman of Texaco Inc.’s Equality and Fairness Task Force, 1997. Worked as vice president and general counsel for Texaco Inc., 1999. Worked as executive vice president and general counsel for The Coca-Cola Co., 2001 to 2004. Became Massachusetts governor, 2006.

- Michigan Gov. Jennifer Granholm.

Born in 1959 in Vancouver, British Columbia. Received law degree from Harvard University in 1987. Worked as a full-time aide, Michigan campaign for presidential candidate Michael Dukakis, 1988. Worked as executive assistant for criminal justice issues in the Wayne County executive office, 1988-89. Worked as a prosecutor in the U.S. attorney’s office in Detroit, 1990-1995. Worked as Wayne County, Mich., corporation counsel, 1995-1998. Worked as Michigan attorney general, 1999-2002. Became Michigan governor, January 2003.

- President Barack Obama will have to nominate a successor after Souter makes his retirement announcement official. Souter is likely to stay on the court through the end of the term in June, and maybe longer if a replacement is not quickly confirmed. Obama will have chosen his successor long before June – if the president hasn’t already made up his mind – but an announcement from the White House is unlikely before the Supreme Court finishes this year’s session.

- The Constitution requires the president to submit his nomination to the Senate for its advice and consent; the House plays no role. The Senate’s majority Democrats and minority Republicans will investigate the nominee’s background thoroughly before hearings begin in the Senate Judiciary Committee. It normally takes between four and six weeks to begin hearings after the Senate receives a Supreme Court nomination.

- The Senate will try to hold hearings and a confirmation vote before the Supreme Court begins its new term in October.

- Hearings will be supervised by Judiciary Committee Chairman Patrick Leahy, D-Vt. The top Republican on the committee will likely be Sen. Orrin Hatch, R-Utah, following Pennsylvania Sen. Arlen Specter’s defection to the Democratic Party earlier this week. Senate hearings on the nominations of John Roberts as chief justice and Samuel Alito as justice, the high court’s two newest justices, lasted about a week.

- At the end of hearings, the committee will vote on the nominee and send a recommendation to the full Senate. Whether the committee decision is positive or negative, the full Senate is likely to vote on the nomination.

- It takes 60 votes to block a filibuster of a Supreme Court nominee. Democrats now hold 59 votes in the Senate with Specter’s defection and two Democratic-voting independents. There is one open seat in the Senate with Norm Coleman and Al Franken fighting in court over the right to be the Minnesota senator.

President Barack Obama’s first pick for the high court is likely to be a liberal-leaning nominee, much like Souter.

The White House has been told that Souter will retire in June, when the court finishes its work for the summer, a source familiar with his plans said Thursday night. The retirement is likely to take effect only once a successor is confirmed.

The source spoke to The Associated Press on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak for Souter.

Souter had no comment Thursday night, a Supreme Court spokeswoman said.

The vacancy could lead to another woman on the bench to join Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, currently the court’s only female justice.

At 69, Souter is much younger than either Ginsburg, 76, or Justice John Paul Stevens, 89, the other two liberal justices whose names have been mentioned as possible retirees. Yet those justices have given no indication they intend to retire soon and Ginsburg said she plans to serve into her 80s, despite her recent surgery for pancreatic cancer.

Souter, a regular jogger, is thought to be in excellent health.

Interest groups immediately began gearing up.

“We’re looking for President Obama to choose an eminently qualified candidate who is committed to the core constitutional values, who is committed to justice for all and not just a few,” said Nan Aron, president of the liberal Alliance for Justice.

Some of the names that have been circulating include recently confirmed Solicitor General Elena Kagan; U.S. Appeals Court Judges Sonya Sotomayor, Kim McLane Wardlaw, Sandra Lea Lynch and Diane Pamela Wood; and Leah Ward Sears, chief justice of the Georgia Supreme Court. Men who have been mentioned as potential nominees include Massachusetts Gov. Deval Patrick, Harvard Law professor Cass Sunstein and U.S. District Judge Ruben Castillo of Chicago.

The Obama White House began from almost its first days in office preparing for the possibility of a retirement by thinking about and vetting potential high court nominees. Those efforts only accelerated with Ginsburg’s cancer surgery.

The timing may have been unexpected, but Souter has long yearned for a life outside Washington.

He has never made any secret of his dislike for the capital, once telling acquaintances he had “the world’s best job in the world’s worst city.” When the court finishes its work for the summer, he quickly departs for his beloved New Hampshire.

He has been on the court since 1990, when he was an obscure federal appeals court judge until President George H.W. Bush tapped him for the Supreme Court.

Bush White House aide John Sununu, the former conservative governor of New Hampshire, hailed his choice as a “home run.” And early in his time in Washington, Souter was called a moderate conservative.

But he soon joined in a ruling reaffirming woman’s right to an abortion, a decision from 1992 that remains still perhaps his most noted work on the court.

Souter became a reliable liberal vote on the court and was one of the four dissenters in the 2000 decision in Bush v. Gore that sealed the presidential election for George W. Bush.

Yet as Souter biographer Tinsley Yarbrough noted, “he doesn’t take extreme positions.” Indeed, in June, Souter sided with Exxon Mobil Corp. and broke with his liberal colleagues in slashing the punitive damages the company owed Alaskan victims of the Exxon Valdez oil spill.

Souter is the court’s 105th justice, only its sixth bachelor. He works seven days a week through most of the court’s October-to-July terms, a pace that he says leaves time for little else. He told an audience this year that he undergoes “an annual intellectual lobotomy” each fall.

Souter earned his bachelor’s and law degrees from Harvard sandwiched around a stay at Oxford University as a Rhodes scholar.

He became New Hampshire’s attorney general in 1976 and a state court judge two years later. By 1990, he was on the federal appeals court in Boston for only a few months when Bush picked him to replace Justice William Brennan on the Supreme Court.