Obama nominates top lawyer Kagan to US Supreme Court

WASHINGTON - President Barack Obama Monday nominated the administration’s chief lawyer, Elena Kagan, to serve on the highest US court.

Kagan, 50, would become the fifth woman to be a justice of the Supreme Court and would join two other women currently serving on the nine-member bench.

A career lawyer, Kagan currently argues cases on behalf of the administration before the Supreme Court as Obama’s solicitor general. But she has never been a judge - the first time since the 1970s that an individual without experience in the judicial branch has been nominated.

The Supreme Court must confirm Kagan’s nomination.