Elena Kagan is the fourth woman in history to be appointed as a Justice in The United States Supreme Court. In this paper her background including her early life, legal education, and professional activities prior to her nomination to the Court will be discussed.
Justice Elena Kagan was born on April 28th 1960 in New York City to Gloria and Robert Kagan. She was the second of three children in a middle class Jewish family living on Manhattan’s Upper West Side. Kagan’s mother Gloria worked as a teacher at Hunter College Elementary School, while her father was a partner at the Manhattan Law firm Kagan &Lubic. As a student Elena attended Hunter College High School which she graduated from in 1977. Upon graduating Kagan went to Princeton where …show more content…
Kagan earned the prestigious Daniel M. Sachs Graduating Fellow scholarship which allowed her to continue her education at Worcester College in Oxford England. Following in her father’s footsteps Elena received her Master’s degree in philosophy where shortly after she began her endeavors at Harvard Law School. At Harvard Kagan excelled in her classes and graduated magna cum laude in 1986 with her J.D. While at Harvard University she also was the supervising editor of the Harvard Law Review (Officer of The Solicitor General, 2010). Upon graduating Kagan served as a law clerk to Judge Abner Mikva of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia from 1986 to 1987. Kagan also clerked for Justice Thurgood Marshall of the United Supreme Court in 1987 (Biographies of Current Justices of the Supreme Court, 2016).In addition to clerking for Mikva and Marshall Kagan also worked for Michael Dukakis’s 1988 presidential campaign. Shortly after Dukakis lost the campaign she moved to the private sector to work as an attorney at the Washington D.C. law firm Williams and Connolly. Kagan worked in the private sector for a total of three
Justice Elena Kagan was born on April 28th 1960 in New York City to Gloria and Robert Kagan. She was the second of three children in a middle class Jewish family living on Manhattan’s Upper West Side. Kagan’s mother Gloria worked as a teacher at Hunter College Elementary School, while her father was a partner at the Manhattan Law firm Kagan &Lubic. As a student Elena attended Hunter College High School which she graduated from in 1977. Upon graduating Kagan went to Princeton where …show more content…
Kagan earned the prestigious Daniel M. Sachs Graduating Fellow scholarship which allowed her to continue her education at Worcester College in Oxford England. Following in her father’s footsteps Elena received her Master’s degree in philosophy where shortly after she began her endeavors at Harvard Law School. At Harvard Kagan excelled in her classes and graduated magna cum laude in 1986 with her J.D. While at Harvard University she also was the supervising editor of the Harvard Law Review (Officer of The Solicitor General, 2010). Upon graduating Kagan served as a law clerk to Judge Abner Mikva of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia from 1986 to 1987. Kagan also clerked for Justice Thurgood Marshall of the United Supreme Court in 1987 (Biographies of Current Justices of the Supreme Court, 2016).In addition to clerking for Mikva and Marshall Kagan also worked for Michael Dukakis’s 1988 presidential campaign. Shortly after Dukakis lost the campaign she moved to the private sector to work as an attorney at the Washington D.C. law firm Williams and Connolly. Kagan worked in the private sector for a total of three