Basically what it seems to be saying is that her job, as a young attorney, with the Puerto Rican Legal Defense and Education Fund, somehow renders her less than qualified to be a Supreme Court Justice. The gist of the argument seems to be:
1. Sonia Sotomayor represented indigent immigrants as part of her job.
2. She did her job well.
3. Therefore, she might presently be biased in favor of the people she used to represent as part of her old job.
The absurdity is not only in this argument, but that NYT reports it as though it's a legitimate conflict of interest. All I can tell you (and this is from personal experience) is that we represent clients. In order to do our job effectively, we have to empathize with our clients. We are their advocates. By this logic, all lawyers who have ever represented anyone in any capacity cannot serve on the Supreme Court, because we all have represented clients whose positions might be different from those of the parties we might judge. The President will have to confine his search to first year law school students.
Supreme Court Justice: Not a bad entry level job.
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