U.S. Supreme Court Justice Sotomayor to Speak with Notre Dame Law Students

U.S. Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor will hold a conversation with Notre Dame law students Wednesday, September 2, from 12:30 to 1:30 p.m. in the Patrick F. McCartan Courtroom. She will talk with students about a variety of issues in the conversation moderated by Jennifer Mason McAward, associate professor of law and acting director of the Center for Civil and Human Rights.

Sotomayor, who has served on the Supreme Court since 2009, was born in Bronx, New York, and is a 1976 summa cum laude graduate of Princeton University. She earned her juris doctor degree in 1979 from Yale Law School, where she served as an editor of the Yale Law Journal. She was an assistant district attorney in the New York County District Attorney’s Office from 1979 to 1984. From 1984 to 1992 she litigated international commercial matters in New York City as an associate and partner with the firm Pavia & Harcourt.

Nominated by President George H.W. Bush to the U.S. District Court, Southern District of New York, in 1991, she served in that role from 1992 to 1998 and as a judge on the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit from 1998 to 2009. President Barack Obama nominated her as an associate justice of the Supreme Court on May 26, 2009.

The Law School will hold a lottery for students to be seated in the McCartan Courtroom. An additional room will stream the conversation to enable other students to view the program.