WASHINGTON — Several partygoers were on their way into the Supreme Court one Saturday evening in May to toast retiring Justice John Paul Stevens when they ran into Justice Sonia Sotomayor. She was not heading to the festivities, but coming from her chambers, where she had put in a weekend shift.
She looked neither tired nor overwhelmed by her new responsibilities, one of the partygoers noticed. “She was beaming.’’
In some ways, Sotomayor’s just-finished first term on the court was like those of many who have come before her: She worked constantly, turned down interview requests and most speaking engagements, wrote unglamorous and largely noncontroversial opinions, and was ideologically true to the president who appointed her. She voted with Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg more than any other colleague on the court.
But the court’s first Hispanic member, and only its third woman, has hardly had the typical first-termer’s experience.
http://www.boston.com/news/nation/washington/articles/2010/07/25/first_year_stands_out_for_sotomayor_on_supreme_court/