Justice Elena Kagan
Associate Justice U.S. Supreme Court
Elena Kagan was born in April 1960, in Manhattan, New York. She earned an A.B. from Princeton University and a B.C.L. from Worcester College, Oxford University. She obtained her Juris Doctor from Harvard Law School.
Kagan worked as a law clerk at the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit, and for Justice Thurgood Marshall of the U.S. Supreme Court. She entered into the private practice of law.
She became an assistant professor of law at Harvard and was tenured as a full professor four years later. Her interests focused on administrative law, including the role of the President of the United States. For four years she served as President Bill Clinton’s Associate White House Counsel and Deputy Assistant to the President for Domestic Policy and Deputy Director of the Domestic Policy Council.
She returned to Harvard, becoming the first female dean of the Harvard Law School where she served six years.
Kagan returned to government, where she served two years as Solicitor General of the United States under President Obama.
In May 2010, President Barack Obama nominated Kagan to succeed Supreme Court Justice John Paul Stevens. She was confirmed by the Senate and sworn in by Chief Justice John Roberts in August 2010. She is the first justice appointed without any prior experience as a judge since William Rehnquist in 1972. She is the fourth female justice in the Court’s history.
Justice Kagan has never married and has no children. She lists her faith as Conservative Judaism.
In the News…
Associate Justice Elena Kagan questioned the request to revive a case that was initially dismissed by a lower court and then affirmed by the Second Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals. Under the Justice Against Sponsors of Terrorism Act, the survivors of Hamas attacks over twenty years ago in Lebanon claim the bank knew that the customers were members of the terrorist group, but they neglected to provide evidence of this in their original complaint.
After the judgment, the plaintiffs sought to reopen the case to offer proof that the institution knew of the Hamas connection. The district court denied the request, citing a lack of extraordinary circumstances under one rule, which the appellate court overturned under a different rule, deciding that extraordinary circumstances did not apply.
Justice Kagan declared that “the right standard is … extraordinary circumstances.“
The associate justice described the appellate court’s reasoning as “some kind of mishmash of a standard, which is part 60(b) and part 15(a).” Justice Kagan continued, “As I understood your introduction, you have given up on that.”
Justice Kagan asked, “Why shouldn’t the court simply say that the lower court’s reasoning is ‘wrong‘ and it should ‘go back and try it again‘?“
Contact this Leader…
Did you pray for Justice Kagan today? You can let her know at:
The Honorable Elena Kagan
Justice of the United States Supreme Court
1 First Street NE
Washington, DC 20543
