President Obama said he would appoint people to our courts who not only had brilliant legal minds, but who also understand how the law impacts the everyday lives of working families. Today he has fulfilled that promise by nominating U.S. Court of Appeals Judge Sonia Sotomayor to serve on the U.S. Supreme Court.

"Beyond her brilliance, her three-decade career in the law and her distinguished record, Judge Sotomayor's personal story of achievement has given her a rare insight into the lives of people who get up and go to work each day to make a better life for their families," says SEIU Secretary-Treasurer Anna Burger.

Judge Sotomayor's life story is a remarkable retelling of the American Dream. She grew up in a public housing project in the South Bronx after her parents moved there from Puerto Rico, and after her father passed away when she was 9, her mother worked six-day weeks as a nurse to earn enough money to send her and a brother to Catholic school. Sotomayor graduated summa cum laude from Princeton University and then made her way to Yale Law School, where she received her JD and served as an editor of the Yale Law Review. She was appointed to the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York in 1992 by George H.W. Bush and to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 2nd Circuit by President Clinton in 1998.

"The daughter of a nurse and a factory worker who instilled in her the value of hard work and giving back, she is a woman who has always earned her way to the top of the class and found ways to use her accomplishments to enhance the lives of others," says Burger. "Judge Sotomayor would bring more federal judicial experience to the Supreme Court than any justice in 100 years and more overall judicial experience than anyone confirmed for the Court in the past 70 years. She is an extraordinary choice for this moment and for the future challenges this country will see."

Judge Sonia Sotomayor would become the nation's 111th justice, the first Hispanic to serve on the high court, and just the third woman to sit on the nation's highest court. Watch video of President Obama's nomination of Sotomayor:

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