• As Sonia Sotomayor "moves through the confirmation process," she "has explained very little about one facet of her legal life: Sotomayor & Associates, the solo law practice she ran out of her Brooklyn apartment for several years in the 1980s," the New York Times reports.

• "Finally joining the Senate, Democrat Al Franken envisions playing the 'people's proxy' during" Sotomayor's confirmation "hearings. Franken, awaiting 'an awfully emotional' Tuesday when he is sworn in, is joining the Senate Judiciary Committee," AP reports.

• Senate Judiciary ranking member Jeff Sessions, R-Ala., "said Monday that he wants to find out whether" Sotomayor "would let racial bias affect her decisions as a justice," AP also reports.

• Sessions also said Monday that "his party might throw up procedural roadblocks to delay next week's planned confirmation hearing," CQ reports.

• But Roll Call (subscription) reports that "earlier rumors of GOP-led delay tactics to stall" Sotomayor's "nomination now appear all but dead."

• The National Law Journal reports on "12 themes likely to emerge" in the hearings.

• "Puerto Rican relatives of" Sotomayor "hope to attend her confirmation hearings," AP reports.

• "For all the talk of Chief Justice John Roberts Jr. slowly guiding it rightward, the Supreme Court still belongs to Justice Anthony Kennedy," the Blog of Legal Times reports, reviewing a panel discussion on the changing dynamics of the high court.

Commentary

• "Message to GOP: On Sotomayor, give it up," writes Bonnie Erbe. With her hearings "set to begin next week, Republicans are still peering under every pillow in Washington, seeking issues to use against her during those hearings."

• Heritage Foundation fellow Steven Groves says Sotomayor should be questioned at her confirmation hearings "regarding the role that foreign law and world opinion will play in her decision-making process."

• "Call it the 'Sotomayor Primary,' the first-in-the-nation contest for 2012 Hispanic voters, and" Karl Rove, "while acknowledging their importance, is willfully driving this key bloc of voters away from the Republican fold," John Edgell, former Democratic congressional staffer, writes in CQ.