Judge Sonia Sotomayor 's background has been discussed at length since her nomination for a seat on the Supreme Court.  But what about her legal language?  In my study of federal judges, Judge Sotomayor received high marks for gender neutrality.  She took care to avoid gender-biased male pronouns in framing her case opinions, sometimes by using neutral pairs like "his or her."

For a fuller report of the study's results, see http://ssrn.com/abstract=1156985

                                    --The Word Aficionado