Elena Kagan, (born April 28, 1960, New York, New York, U.S.), associate justice of the Supreme Court of the United States from 2010. She also was the first woman to serve as U.S. solicitor general (2009–10).
Elena Kagan being sworn in as associate justice of the U.S. Supreme Court by Chief Justice John G. Roberts, Jr., August 7, 2010.
Steve Petteway, Collection of the Supreme Court of the United States
Kagan, the daughter of Robert Kagan, a lawyer, and Gloria Gittelman Kagan, an elementary school teacher, was raised in New York City. She received a B.A. in history from Princeton University in 1981 and then studied on a fellowship at the University of Oxford, where she received an M.Phil. in 1983. Afterward she attended Harvard Law School, where she was awarded a J.D. in 1986. Upon receiving her law degree, Kagan spent several years clerking, first for Abner Mikva, who served on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit, and then for Thurgood Marshall, associate justice of the U.S. Supreme Court.
