Supreme Court nominee Sonia Sotomayor weathered a third day of her Senate confirmation hearing Wednesday, frustrating Republican senators’ attempts to probe her controversial past speeches and her views on abortion and other hot-button issues.
Appearing more relaxed than on Tuesday, Sotomayor also spoke about her years as a private practitioner and as a prosecutor in New York City. She revealed that she went to a small firm in 1984 after her stint in the city district attorney’s office because she did not want to be “the fifth guy on the totem pole.” The firm was Pavia & Harcourt, where she said she tackled civil cases for four years ranging from intellectual property disputes for Fendi and Ferrari to commodity trading issues for a client whose product was orange peels used for livestock feed.
