Supreme Court nominee Judge Sonia Sotomayor was a member of the Yale Law School Class of 1979 and an editor of the Yale Law Journal. If confirmed by the U.S. Senate, she would be the Court’s first Hispanic justice and its third woman. Judge Sotomayor would also join two other Yale Law School graduates currently on the Court—Justice Clarence Thomas ’74 and former Journal editor Justice Samuel Alito ’75.

While a member of the Journal, Judge Sotomayor published a student Note, Statehood and the Equal Footing Doctrine: The Case for Puerto Rican Seabed Rights. Judge Sotomayor's piece, published in Volume 88 of the Journal, analyzed issues regarding Puerto Rico’s ability to maintain rights to its seabed if it pursued statehood.  The citation for the Note is: Note, Statehood and the Equal Footing Doctrine: The Case for Puerto Rican Seabed Rights, 88 Yale L.J. 825 (1979). It can be read here.