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Emma Coleman Jordan is a professor of Law at Georgetown University Law Center. She is most recognized for her work developing economic justice in legal theory. She was a White House Fellow in 1980-81 serving as special assistant to the attorney general, working on the nomination process of Sandra Day O'Connor, the first female Supreme Court Justice. She was also counsel to Professor Anita Hill during the Clarence Thomas confirmation hearings in 1992.

Coleman Jordan explains, through her unique, inside perspective, what Judge Sonia Sotomayor can now expect in the next phase of her nomination process and what obstacles she will likely encounter.

As Judge Sotomayor prepares to become the next U.S. Supreme Court Justice, her lifetime of diligence and speed reading will now be crucial to help her navigate the next phase of her nomination. From here on out, she will be silent. We will not hear her voice again until she sits before the members of the Senate Judiciary Committee.

In the spring of 1981, I was this African-American progressive Democrat, a female law professor chosen to work as a White House Fellow assigned to Republican Attorney General William French Smith. I was one of three special assistants working directly on the search for the replacement to Justice Stewart that led to Justice O'Connor's nomination. I was responsible for preparing briefing books for Attorney General Smith's chief of staff, Kenneth Starr, before the O'Connor nomination was announced, so I know precisely what Judge Sotomayor will experience in the next 60 days.

The judge will be working feverishly with a team of lawyers from the Office of the White House Counsel, Gregory Craig, the Office of the Vice President, and the Justice Department. After her press conference with the President last week, more than likely she went straight to a briefing session in which she was given several thick "briefing books" filled with memos that identify the most difficult questions of constitutional law that the members of the Senate Judiciary Committee are likely to ask during her confirmation hearing.