And the next Madam Justice will be ....

Have women really come as far in the legal profession as this article suggests? Read Charlie Savage's speculation in the New York Times about who might fill the Souter chair ...

Here's an excerpt:

More than 200 women are federal district and appeals court judges, representing about a quarter of each bench, according to statistics compiled in 2008 by the American Bar Association. More than a hundred women are judges on top state courts, and a third of state chief justices are women.

In a country where nearly 1.2 million people are practicing lawyers, more than 45 percent of law firm associates — and 18 percent of partners — are women. Nearly a fifth of the nation’s law school deans are women, as were nearly 48 percent of the most recent class of law school graduates.