The Senate Judiciary Committee’s confirmation hearings probably will start in late June or early July. On Monday Senate Judiciary Chair Patrick Leahy of Vermont voiced support for the selection of Kagan.

Sen. Patrick Leahy: “I’m glad to see somebody from outside the judicial monastery. Again, in our history, it’s only in recent decades that the justices were all from the federal courts. We had — some of our most dynamic courts have been those where they came from different backgrounds. I worry when you’re in a judicial monastery that you don’t have the kind of real-world experience you might have otherwise.”