Sonia Sotomayor

(image by The White House via flickr)

If she's appointed, Judge Sonia Sotomayor will be the first Hispanic U.S. Supreme Court justice. But first, she may have to win over some haters.

A U.S. Court of Appeals judge with over a decade of experience, Sotomayor is believed to be President Barack Obama's leading candidate to replace retiring Supreme Court Justice David H. Souter.

Over the last two weeks, some bloggers and journalists have questioned Sotomayor's intelligence, using anonymous quotes from ex-employees who claim she is "not that smart and kind of a bully." Flying in the face of her sterling credentials – including a law degree from Yale, the one of the nation's top law schools – Sotomayor has been recently cast as a thick-headed judge with an inflated ego. Her ethnicity may be an issue. Late night talk show host David Letterman announced President Obama was considering a Hispanic judge and then showed a clip from Telemundo's "Caso Cerrado."

One of Sotomayor's former clerks, University of Illinois Professor Robin Kar, compared her to President Obama for her "brilliance" and ability to "forge deep and abiding relationships with people from all walks of life, and from all political stripes and ideologies." Her personal story may be just as compelling as the president's: the daughter of Puerto Rican immigrants, Sotomayor was born and raised in the Bronx, New York, was diagnosed with diabetes at the age of eight and lost her father a year later. She and her younger brother were raised by her single mom in a housing project not far from Yankee Stadium. After graduating from Cardinal Spellman High School, Sotomayor received top honors from the Ivy League Princeton University before attending Yale Law School.

For those who believe the highest court in the U.S. should reflect the country's diversity, the bilingual 54-year-old with an inspiring biography appears an ideal fit. Despite the fact that women outnumber men in the U.S., only one out of the nine justices is a woman, Ruth Bader Ginsburg. President Obama is expected to make his choice soon but it is up to the Senate judiciary committee in the U.S. Congress to approve his appointment.