28 October 2010

The Justices of the U.S. Supreme Court

Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr.

John G. Roberts Jr., Chief Justice of the United States, was born in Buffalo, New York, January 27, 1955. He married Jane Marie Sullivan in 1996, and they have two children, Josephine and John. He received an A.B. from Harvard College in 1976 and a J.D. from Harvard Law School in 1979. He served as a law clerk for Judge Henry J. Friendly of the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit from 1979 to 1980 and as a law clerk for then-Associate Justice William H. Rehnquist of the Supreme Court of the United States during the 1980 Term. He was special assistant to the attorney general, U.S. Department of Justice, 1981-1982; associate counsel to President Ronald Reagan, White House Counsel’s Office, 1982-1986; and principal deputy solicitor general, U.S. Department of Justice, 1989- 1993. From 1986 to 1989 and 1993 to 2003, he practiced law in Washington, D.C. He was appointed to the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit in 2003. President George W. Bush nominated him as chief justice of the United States, and he took his seat on September 29, 2005.

Associate Justice Elena Kagan

Elena Kagan, Associate Justice, was born in New York on April 28, 1960. She received an A.B., summa cum laude, in 1981 from Princeton University. She attended Worcester College, Oxford University, as Princeton’s Daniel M. Sachs Graduating Fellow, and received an M. Phil. in 1983. In 1986, she earned a J.D. from Harvard Law School, graduating magna cum laude, where she was supervising editor of the Harvard Law Review. She served as a law clerk to Judge Abner Mikva of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit from 1986–1987. She served as a law clerk to Justice Thurgood Marshall of the Supreme Court during the 1987 term. She worked as an associate in the Washington law firm of Williams & Connolly LLP from 1989–1991. She became an assistant professor at the University of Chicago Law School in 1991 and a tenured professor of law in 1995. From 1995–1999, she was associate counsel to President Clinton and then served as deputy assistant to the President for Domestic Policy and Deputy Director of the Domestic Policy Council. She joined Harvard Law School as a visiting professor in 1999 and became professor of law in 2001. She was the Charles Hamilton Houston Professor of Law and was appointed the 11th dean of Harvard Law School in 2003. President Obama nominated her to serve as the 45th Solicitor General of the United States and she was confirmed on March 19, 2009. President Obama nominated her as an Associate Justice of the Supreme Court on May 10, 2010, and she assumed this role on August 7, 2010.

For the rest of the Supreme Court justices’ biographies, see http://www.supremecourt.gov/about/biographies.aspx.

(This is a product of the Bureau of International Information Programs, U.S. Department of State. Web site: http://www.america.gov)