She earned her Bachelor's degree from Princeton University and obtained her Juris doctorate degree from Yale Law School, where she also served as an editor of the Yale Law Journal.

Widely considered to be a political centrist, Sotomayor was nominated by former Republican president George H.W. Bush in 1991 for the US District Court for Southern District of New York. Afterwards, former Democratic president Bill Clinton appointed her to the seat she held until today as judge on the 2nd Circuit Court of Appeals.

Selecting Sotomayor was considered to be a political compromise because she appealed to Latinos, women and political independents, three major support groups for Obama's presidential campaign.

However, Sotomayor was not expected to bridge the ideological divide of the Supreme Court, since she and her predecessor, Justice David Souter, were both slightly left-centered.