Sonia Sotomayor made a name for herself when she became the first Hispanic and the third woman to serve on the Supreme Court.

Before rising to the ranks of the judicial system, Sotomayor was raised in a housing project in the Bronx after her parents moved to New York City from Puerto Rico. According to Britannica, Sotomayor's mother worked long hours as a nurse to support the family when her father died.

The Supreme Court justice said the television crime show Perry Mason was the reason why she decided to become a lawyer. Sotomayor graduated summa cum laude from Princeton University before attending Yale Law School, where she worked as an editor of the Yale Law Journal.

She worked for five years as an assistant district attorney in New York before she decided to pursue private practice in a New York firm, where she handled intellectual property and copyright cases.

Former President Barack Obama nominated Sonia Sotomayor to the Supreme Court in May 2009 to fill the vacancy left by departing Justice David Souter.

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Sonia Sotomayor Net Worth

According to Celebrity Net Worth, Sonia Sotomayor has a net worth of $6 million. She has a salary of $200,000 for being an Associate Justice of the Supreme Court.

A 2009 New York Times report noted that Sotomayor bought her four-room, 980-square-foot apartment in 1998 for $360,000.

The judge was reportedly an avid traveler, and she had already traveled from the Caribbean to Galapagos Islands. Sotomayor has been known to stop in at a casino on vacation.

In 2008, she was reported to hit an $8,283 jackpot while visiting a Florida casino with her mother. White House spokeswoman at the time, Stephanie Cutter, said the judge was not a regular gambler and joked that "she is lucky."

As a federal judge, Sonia Sotomayor was reported to be entitled to a pension equal to her annual salary.

Sonia Sotomayor Career

Sonia Sotomayor was appointed by former President George H.W. Bush in 1992 as a federal judge in the U.S. District Court, Southern District of New York.

She received national attention in 1995 when she ruled in favor of Major League Baseball players, then on strike, who were suing due to changes to the free-agent system and salary arbitration rules. Sotomayor issued an injunction against the team owners, which effectively ended the eight-month strike.

Former President Bill Clinton also nominated Sotomayor to be a judge of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit in 1997. However, Republican senators delayed her appointment for more than a year due to their concerns that the position might lead to a Supreme Court nomination.

Sonia Sotomayor ruled in favor of a woman with dyslexia in 2001 who wanted more accommodations under the Americans with Disabilities Act to take the bar exam.

She has been known for her carefully reasoned decisions, with some of them prompting controversy.

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Written by: Mary Webber

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