Elena Kagan: Information from Answers.com

Elena Kagan

45th United States Solicitor General
Incumbent
Assumed office March 19, 2009
President	Barack Obama
Preceded by	Gregory G. Garre

Born	April 28, 1960 (1960-04-28) (age 49)^[1] New York City
Alma mater	Princeton University Worcester College, Oxford Harvard Law School

Elena Kagan (born April 28, 1960)^[1] (pronounced /ˈkeɪɡən/^[2]) is the Solicitor General of the United States. She is the first woman to hold that office, having been nominated by President Barack Obama on January 26, 2009, and confirmed by the U.S. Senate on March 19, 2009. Kagan was formerly dean of Harvard Law School and Charles Hamilton Houston Professor of Law at Harvard University. She was previously a professor of law at the University of Chicago Law School. She served as Associate White House Counsel under President Bill Clinton.

1 Early life and education
2 Early career
3 Academia
4 White House
5 1999 judicial nomination
6 Dean of Harvard Law School
7 Solicitor General nomination
8 Possible Supreme Court nomination
9 References
10 Other news coverage
11 External links
12 See also

Early life and education

Kagan was born to a Jewish family^[3] in New York City. After graduating from Hunter College High School in 1977, Kagan earned an A.B. (summa cum laude) from Princeton University in 1981, an M. Phil. from Worcester College, Oxford University, in 1983, and a J.D. (magna cum laude) from Harvard Law School in 1986. She was editorial chairman of the Daily Princetonian and later supervising editor of the Harvard Law Review.

Early career

Kagan was a law clerk for Judge Abner Mikva of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit and for Justice Thurgood Marshall of the U.S. Supreme Court. She later entered private practice an associate at the Washington, D.C., law firm of Williams & Connolly.^[1]

Academia

She launched her scholarly career at the University of Chicago Law School. She became an assistant professor in 1991 and a tenured professor of law in 1995.

Kagan's scholarly work focuses on administrative law, including the role of the President of the United States in formulating and influencing federal administrative and regulatory law. Her 2001 Harvard Law Review article, "Presidential Administration," was honored as the year's top scholarly article by the American Bar Association's Section on Administrative Law and Regulatory Practice, and is being developed into a book to be published by Harvard University Press. Kagan has also written widely on a range of First Amendment issues and in ways supportive of free speech rights.

White House

From 1995 to 1999, Kagan served as President Bill Clinton's Associate White House Counsel and Deputy Assistant to the President for Domestic Policy and Deputy Director of the Domestic Policy Council.

1999 judicial nomination

On June 17, 1999, President Clinton nominated Kagan to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit, to replace James L. Buckley, who had taken senior status in 1996. The Senate Judiciary Committee's Republican chairman Orrin Hatch scheduled no hearing, thus killing her nomination. When Clinton's term ended, she and Allen Snyder were unconfirmed nominees for the D.C. circuit court.^[4]

In 2001, President George W. Bush nominated John G. Roberts to the seat to which Kagan had been nominated; Roberts was confirmed in 2003 and resigned in 2005 upon his confirmation as Chief Justice of the United States. The seat to which Kagan had been nominated remained vacant in mid-2009.

Dean of Harvard Law School

Lawrence Summers appointed Kagan the first female dean of Harvard Law School in 2003.^[5] She succeeded Robert C. Clark who had served as dean for over a decade. The focus of her tenure has been improving student satisfaction. Efforts include constructing new facilities and reforming the first year curriculum, as well as aesthetic changes and creature comforts, such as free morning coffee. She has been credited for employing a consensus-building leadership style which surmounted the school's previous ideological discord.

She also inherited a $400 million capital campaign, "Setting the Standard," in 2003. It ended in 2008 with a record breaking $476 million raised, 19% more than the original goal.^[6] Kagan is also credited with overcoming ideological disputes among the Law School faculty that had hindered new faculty appointments. She has made a number of prominent new hires, increasing the size of the faculty considerably.^{[citation needed]}

Her name was briefly mooted to replace Summers as president of Harvard.^[5] During her deanship, Kagan supported a long-standing policy barring military recruiters from campus.

Solicitor General nomination

On January 5, 2009, President-elect Barack Obama announced he would nominate Kagan to be Solicitor General.^[7] Before this appointment she had limited courtroom experience. She had never argued a case at trial,^[8] and had not argued before the Supreme Court of the United States. This is not uncommon, however, as at least two previous Solicitors General, Robert Bork and Kenneth Starr, had no previous appellate experience at the Supreme Court, though Starr served as a Circuit Court Judge prior to acting as Solicitor General and Bork briefly served as Attorney General prior to his appointment as Solicitor General.^[9] Walter Dellinger, a top Supreme Court practitioner and former Acting Solicitor General, stated Kagan's lack of experience would not be a hindrance. "She is a first-rate legal scholar, but she brings much more than that," Dellinger said. "She knows government, and she knows how to run institutions.^[10]

At her confirmation hearing, Kagan also drew criticism for arguing that battlefield law, including indefinite detention without a trial, could apply outside of traditional battlefields.^[11]

Kagan was confirmed by the U.S. Senate on March 19, 2009 by a vote of 61 to 31.^[12] She made her first appearance in oral argument before the Supreme Court on September 9, 2009, in Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission.^[13]

Possible Supreme Court nomination

Long before the election of President Barack Obama, Kagan was the subject of repeated speculation that she might be nominated to the Supreme Court of the United States if a Democratic president was elected in 2008.^[14]^[15]^[16]^[17]^[18] This speculation greatly increased on May 1, 2009 when Associate Justice David H. Souter announced his intention to retire from the court at the end of June 2009. It was speculated that her new position as Solicitor General could increase Kagan's already much discussed chances to be nominated, since solicitors general have often been considered potential nominees to the Supreme Court in the past. On May 13, 2009, the Associated Press reported that President Obama was considering Kagan, among others, for possible appointment to the United States Supreme Court.^[19] On May 26, 2009, however, President Obama announced that he was nominating Sonia Sotomayor to be the next United States Supreme Court Justice.^[20]