This pretty much confirms that Kagan will be Obama's first pick for the Supreme Court.

Now he just has to appoint Karl Marx to head Treasury and we'll be all set.

so much for the free coffee/bagels/ice rink.

**transfers to BC**

so much for the free coffee/bagels/ice rink.

**transfers to BC**

--HLS 1L

Now that the bleeding hearts are in charge of the rule of law, we're all screwed.

3: You're an ass.

My only worry is that this could be a consolation prize for Kagan when Sotomayor gets nominated to the bench (booo!).

Meanwhile: Yeeeeah Kagan!

at 2 - no she'll be second or third - whenever RBG wants to stop. Stevens wants to retire sooner rather than later and Obama's gonna want her to be SG for a while.

so much for the free coffee/bagels/ice rink.

**transfers to BC**

--HLS 1L

.............crickets.......................

HAROLD KOH BREATHES A SIGH OF RELIEF!

appointing a female SG is probably so that Obama has more leeway to appoint a Hispanic or black justice.

Why did Lat use a picture of Dean Kagan's father/brother?

"is a critical time in our history"

As opposed to other ho-hum times.

To the "crickets" guy:

This is big news to people who care about the true top tier of the legal profession: not big firms, but elite appellate and Supreme Court practice.

The philistines on ATL care just about bonuses and layoffs. But the SG's office is more prestigious than any law firm.

Hmm. I like her as a SCOTUS pick, not so much as an SG. As far as I can tell, she's never done any appellate advocacy at all, having gone into academia after just a few years as an associate at W&C. She may be smart, but SG's also have to actually argue cases...

Damn, and we were really starting to make a push to knock off YLS.

What are the rumors for interim (or new) Dean?

.......extra crickets...............

Awesome for America, bad for HLS.
She will truly be a cut above that scumbag Olson or the rest of the clowns who have disgraced the office for the last 8 years

Is Kagan a gay like Kathleen Sullivan?

As 16 noted, this is all about optics. Her flame-out will be spectacular.

@15--"The philistines on ATL care just about bonuses and layoffs. But the SG's office is more prestigious than any law firm."
you're right on the prestige point, but the prestige is only desirable if it can then be translated into money-- which is what solicitor generals typically do.

15- you are a douche. Go have some more Earl Grey tea and yell at your Hispanic gardener for pruning your roses too short. All the ATL prestige talk on this board makes me laugh. Do you get preferred seating at TGI Friday's because your job is more "prestigious" than others? Do you get to use the super secret carpool lane that no one else uses because your job is more "prestigious" than that of the other drivers? Get a life. Actually, strike that. Please die. Now.

11 & 17- the truly cromulent posters

20, Kagan will never even approach the level of appellate advocacy that Olson has obtained. Don't confuse your distaste for his politics with his professional abilities. The SG's office is about to become a very smart, well-pedigreed joke.

LOL 13

Nice work, ATL got this email 20 minutes before I (alumni) did.

Kagan is very smart, but a jerk, so forgive me for rooting for this nomination to fall apart.

27, I found her to be very nice at the incoming student event. What's the real deal, according to you?

Congrats Dean Kagan!

25- I concede to you on the appellate advocacy point. well played. then again, the devil does speak with a forked tongue....
-20 (no 19 thanks to Lat's edits)

11:29 - I think the point the earlier poster was making is that a concern about prestige (SG's office) is less crass than a concern about money (bonuses).

She may be a jerk in the classroom, but she strikes up excellent small-talk as we wait on line for food at the student center, believe you me.

23 - what do you have against Captain Picard's favorite drink?

On the left, there's probably no more qualified appellate litigator in the country for this post.

Dean Kagan was a finalist in the "law school dean hotties contest":

http://www.abovethelaw.com/2006/10/law_school_dean_hotties_your_f_1.php

Now that's a handsome woman.

Obama hates America. I also heard that Kagan is a communist and loves terrorists.

Word . . . ? Word. Word . . . ? Word . . .

Ohhhhhh snap.

Prestige = NAILING a SHEEP qualifying as billable hours

suck it, SCROTUS

Oh no! Now, where will all the Regent Law School grads go? Obama is such an elitist; he picked a top Harvard grad for Deputy AG, too. Not fair. Bush picked Regent grads with middling grades.

Oh no! Now, where will all the Regent Law School grads go? Obama is such an elitist; he picked a top Harvard grad for Deputy AG, too. Not fair. Bush picked Regent grads with middling grades.

This woman is about as hot as a refrigerated piece of leftover pizza. Hot and Elena Kagan should not be used in the same sentence unless it is to distinguish the complete difference between the two.

Not quite right on Thurgood Marshall. He was appointed directly to SCOTUS from the SG's office, but he was a Second Circuit judge for three years just prior to being SG. FDR appointee Stanley Reed went from SG to SCOTUS without any prior judicial experience.

And Reed's judicial work product was a joke.

Just two comments:

(1) - It's ridiculous to argue that any top legal scholar (conservative or liberal) isn't qualified to be SG. Superior legal reasoning and writing skills transfer readily between scholarship and briefwriting. I'm pretty sure that if I ever needed someone to write an appellate brief on my behalf, Kagan (or any other top legal scholar) would do just fine.

(2) - Why do people think she's particularly liberal? She's brought some great conservative profs to HLS, and her scholarship is relatively neutral. The only liberal cause I remember her supporting is the fight against the military's policy on gays, a policy that I honestly think is reasonably embarrassing even for conservatives.

Just two comments:

(1) - It's ridiculous to argue that any top legal scholar (conservative or liberal) isn't qualified to be SG. Superior legal reasoning and writing skills transfer readily between scholarship and briefwriting. I'm pretty sure that if I ever needed someone to write an appellate brief on my behalf, Kagan (or any other top legal scholar) would do just fine.

(2) - Why do people think she's particularly liberal? She's brought some great conservative profs to HLS, and her scholarship is relatively neutral. The only liberal cause I remember her supporting is the fight against the military's policy on gays, a policy that I honestly think is reasonably embarrassing even for conservatives.

I don't see how there is anyone frequenting ATL who feels strongly about this selection on way or the other. Interesting read, but for those of you feigning outrage or glee in order to appear informed, please stop.

I don't see how there is anyone frequenting ATL who feels strongly about this selection on way or the other. Interesting read, but for those of you feigning outrage or glee in order to appear informed, please stop.

I don't see how there is anyone frequenting ATL who feels strongly about this selection on way or the other. Interesting read, but for those of you feigning outrage or glee in order to appear informed, please stop.

47-49. Some of us go/have gone to the school where she is leaving, you fool. Hence, either outrage or glee.

Also, please only press the 'Post Comment' button once.

And while we're on the "please stop" topic, let's not talk down to our peers.

This has been a lesson from your fifth grade teacher.

--Fifth Grade Teaching Legal Scholar

she looks exactly like my uncle Harvey.

Just for the record, Thurgood Marshall wasn't the only SG to become a Justice. There's Chief Justice Taft, Justice Reed and Justice Jackson, just off the top of my head. Though I think Kagan shouldn't hold her breath waitng for the call. I think Sonia Sotomeyer will be the first pick. (And I hope Seth Waxman, another former SG will be chosen at some point during the Obama years.)

Thiis is sucks that Kagan is in line for the SCOTUS. I mean regardless of gender we definately don't need another justice appointed to the Court who has never faced any real adversity in their life.

53: Your grasp of what matters in jurisprudence is astonishing! Wow! Straight to Hofstra Law!

Not hot. OMG not hot. On any scale. Not Lawyer hot, not professor hot, not academic administration hot. Not even elite institution law school academic administration hot. You can stick her in the middle of the ugliest professional category in the world, still not hot.

Stop whorring for HLS. This one is not even plausible. Heckofa job, Elie.

Lets just hope that the conservatives can last 8 years without one of them dying. This way Obama can only replace liberals with liberals. Does anyone know if we can put Scalia's brain into a robot's body?

wtf is a "Most High D.C. Circuit?"

She looks like Bob Saget with lipstick and earrings.

56: word is that Scalia is hiding a heart condition. What do you expect in a corpulent Sicilian?

Yay Kagan!

-- a Yalie

16: Fried's first appellate argument (maybe first argument at all) was as SG, so it's not unprecedented.

61, just because something stupid has been done before, doesn't mean it bears repeating.

Wow. Scalia becomes the only real check on total descent into socialism.

32,

I had her as a professor, first year, first semester. She went out of her way to be intimidating and difficult to approach. I suppose that might not be unusual in a law professor, but it struck me then (and continues to strike me now) as unprofessional. You don't need to be rude or condescending to students. To me, it's a sign of insecurity. Why would someone who spent twenty years honing her knowledge of a subject need to reinforce her superiority over students who are learning it for the first time?

In one memorable instance, she misstated a question to a student, turning a difficult question into an obvious one. When the student gave the obvious answer to the question (and laughed a bit at the end, because of nervousness at the apparent obviousness of the question) Kagan responded by absolutely drilling the student. We were all in sufficient shock at the time that no one said anything, although by the next day there was enough chatter going around the law school that she felt compelled to apologize.

And before anyone gets the wrong idea, she never did anything to me personally, so I don't have an axe to grind here. I stopped going to that class before she could call on me.

-27

Just what we need in Warshington another imperious Harvardian. That said, we at

http://www.EvilEsq.com due believe she be better suited to the job of Attorney General...

we need a battle-axe in charge there to keep all of the corrupt Obama campaign donors from

sleezing out of the "Rule of Law"....

If Scalia goes because of one too many cheeseburgers wouldn't Obama have to appoint a conservative in order to maintain the "balance" on the Supreme Court, as liberals argued when Powell resigned?

27/64 -

Civ Pro? Section 6? Graduate in 2005?

66: The Court is not "balanced." Scalia, Thomas, Roberts, Alito. Please, leave the soundbites out the door and be real. If Nino kicks the bucket -- though frankly I'd rather have a smart reactionary on the Court than a stupid one like Thomas, so if one needs to kick the bucket I vote for the latter -- that will just be a long overdue chance to restore some semblance of neutrality to the Court.

16/62: Please explain how appointing Fried as SG proved to be "stupid."

-61

67,

I'm guessing we're classmates.

-27/64

66: The Court is not "balanced." Scalia, Thomas, Roberts, Alito. Please, leave the soundbites out the door and be real. If Nino kicks the bucket -- though frankly I'd rather have a smart reactionary on the Court than a stupid one like Thomas, so if one needs to kick the bucket I vote for the latter -- that will just be a long overdue chance to restore some semblance of neutrality to the Court.

27/64,

Indeed.

- 67

27/64: Given that a litigator is more than likely to encounter such hostility from a judge, I don't see what's so wrong about Kagan's socratic method (yes, I have experienced it personally, too).

You may not know that (as with many law professors and judges) her inquisitorial persona and personal demeanor are different. So saying she is a jerk is naive.

68/71: 4 conservatives (Scalia, Thomas, Alito, and Roberts), 4 liberals (Ginsburg, Breyer, Stevens, and Souter), one swing vote (Kennedy). Why isn't it "balanced"?

68/71: SCOTUS has four conservatives (Scalia, Thomas, Alito, Roberts), four liberals (Ginsburg, Breyer, Stevens, Souter), and one swing vote (Kennedy). Why isn't that "balanced"?

"Some semblance of neutrailty"? You must long for the good old days when Brennan and Marshal "neutral" voted to overturn every single death sentence (before reading any briefs) based on their belief that the death penalty was per se unconsitutional.

oops forgive the typos in #75

74: because Souter/Breyer/Stevens/Ginsburg are not nearly as liberal as Scalia/Alito/Roberts/Thomas are conservative?

Come on. Not that difficult.

77: Souter/Breyer/Stevens/Ginsburg are far more liberal than Roberts/Alito (and to a lesser extent, Scalia/Thomas) are conservative.

77/78: silly response

73,

I don't think it is justification to be a jerk to you right now just because there's a possibility that someone else might be a jerk to you in the future. The idea that her nastiness was deliberately put on in order to better train students for the days ahead when some of them act as litigators is a stretch. I saw no evidence that it was the case, nor have I heard any of my classmates express appreciation towards her for these types of tactics.

I agree that her public persona and personal persona may be entirely different. But I think it's quite naive to assume that her persona at these events, where her job is to be personable, is the real Kagan. I find it more likely that she displayed her true personality (as much as a person has one) during her tenure as a professor, where she was not required to be either pleasant or nasty. Plenty of law professors at Harvard and elsewhere have found it easy to be rigorous without being dicks.

Yay Dean Kagan!!!

-- Another Yalie

78: Sure -- if you set the center somewhere around Fox News.

Hey 50:

I think you just argued yourself out of a point. Yeah, you went to HLS. I am sure you care deeply about the institution and have very strong feelings about Dean Kagan. Please. The point of your post was to tell people you went to HLS -- you did not even voice an opinion on Kagan. Your faux outrage at the most makes you look rather pathetic.
While I find repeated postings (like 47-49) annoying to scroll past, your ridicuous posting is far worse.

Sincerely,
HLS Alum

50:

The person you rudely responded to has a point. How many people really get that involved in their law school's administration? Really. Enough to write the angry posts above? Not even close. The additional posts were annoying, but common. 50, I think you were just looking to be a penis. In the spirit of the new year, be an adult an apologize.

Reasonable Human Being

61 -

Did you read the comments to the Volokh post from which you got your info?

http://volokh.com/posts/1231023978.shtml#511112

Useless trivia - Tony Alamo is back in the 'news' because he's being prosecuted.

@27: it's past 5pm. I still havent received the email.

- Concerned Alumni

i mean, alum. not alumni. oops. sorry.

27/64/80: You are purposefully ignoring the context of a law school classroom.

I think the most useful aspect of law school pedagogy is to teach lawyers how to make a persuasive argument to a skeptical---even hostile---audience. Kagan was a demanding, intimidating professor, and I often felt sick to my stomach before going to class. (I had the same reaction before Meltzer's class, and still do while waiting for my cases to be called in court.) But Kagan was undeniably effective.

Again, it is misguided for you to base your evaluation of a judge or law professor's personality based on how they treat the lawyers or law students before them. I'm not suggesting that this principle applies any more broadly than that.

54 you are an elitist. Your lack of understand of what REALLY matters in jurisprudence is BEYOND astonishing! Wow! It is the Justice's background which will frame how he or she will rule in a particular case before the Court (e.g. Earl Warren'S father was murdered or Sandra Day was discriminated against in the 1960s because she was a woman and could not easily secure a job as an attorney). My point was that it would seem that this potential Justice like Roberts and Alito lacks the common experiences most of us face -- adversity. In other words, not all of us are lucky enough to always have it go our way.

85: I didn't get my info from Volokh.

-61

For those who are concerned about Kagan's "easy" ride in ilfe .... you will love Sotomayor if she indeed gets nominated.

only two things are for sure. never start a land war in asia and never ever bet with a Sicilian when death is on the line. Scalia will last...forever

From Wikipedia:
Sonia Sotomayor:

Early life and family

"Of Puerto Rican descent, Sotomayor grew up in the South Bronx. She was diagnosed with diabetes at age 8. Her father, a tool-and-die worker with a third-grade education, died the following year. Her mother, a nurse, raised Sotomayor and her younger brother, who is now a doctor, on a modest salary. Sotomayor married while still a student at Princeton University in 1976, and divorced in 1983".

Meltzer to Dean!

Here here! Huge Meltzer fan.

88,

Strawman erected, strawman destroyed. You are purposely ignoring what I'm saying. Get your mouth off Kagan's dick for a second and read. I'm not arguing that a law professors shouldn't be difficult or demanding. I'm saying they shouldn't be assholes. They should not do things like overreact to fair student answers and yell at students in class for their own mistakes. If what she did was for the betterment of her students, then why did she come in the next day and apologize? Why didn't she just come out and say that it's for our own good? Given your inability to read, I'm starting to wonder if you actually took a class with Kagan, or even attended HLS.

Ah, Dan Meltzer. Love him or hate him, love him or hate him. I don't know.

I remember thinking that most of the profs at HLS seemed like unapproachable jerks. Maybe it was just that the class sizes were too big. Then again, they said HLS was great training to become a corporate lawyer... maybe it gets you innured to the kind of mistreatment and widgetization you can expect at a big firm... Even if Kagan looks like crap, at least she knows how to smile. On a side note, I wish we as a society would stop tacitly encouraging women above 35 to give up and get butch hair cuts. It's not like I get to choose my hair style. I have to shave regularly and can't grow really long hair. Wouldn't be tolerated.

46:

It's ridiculous to argue that any top legal scholar (conservative or liberal) IS qualified to be SG just because he/she is a top legal scholar. Superior legal reasoning and writing skills transfer readily between scholarship and briefwriting, but scholars become “top scholars” by fawning over other “scholars,” and using every variation of “norm” and “normative” as often as they possibly can. How often has her “scholarship” actually been challenged in a court of law or otherwise? Who is really attacking her ideas, as opposed to swatting at her strawmen to gain her favor?

You also ignore oral argument completely, has she ever even tried a case? Thomas is probably the only Justice she is qualified to face during oral argument. Roberts can and will rip her to shreds. Browbeating nervous 1LS and bickering faculty underlings, is a little different than being questioned by the Nine and cajoled by Washingtonians with much much more experience than her.

Your statement is ludicrous and further proof that arrogant academics are a stain on our legal profession.

"Meltzer to Dean!"

TINTCR. Meltzer would be a disaster.

Kagan to 190!

99: Kagan (along with most other legal scholars) can handle the SG position. The lions share of the work is done by a highly-talented group of Deputies (such as Mike Dreeben), Assistants, and Bristow Fellows. As an appellatre attorney, my toughest moots are done in-house. After being mooted by the SG attorneys, she will be able to handle anything thrown at hear by the justices.

Yay for Kagan. Obama should now nominate Nadine Strossen (President of the ACLU) to be the next Justice. She's another highly qualified women that can help move US law in a progressive direction.

What about the "hate speech" hoax a couple years ago -- could that be a problem for Kagan, at least if it turns out she helped cover it up?
http://volokh.com/posts/1228412938.shtml#497676