President Obama plans today to announce the nomination of Solicitor General and former Harvard Law School Dean Elena Kagan to replace retiring Justice John Paul Stevens on the Supreme Court.

Kagan, who at 50 would be the youngest Justice on the Court, emerged as a frontrunner to succeed Stevens soon after he announced his retirement. If confirmed, she would become the first justice since William H. Rehnquist in 1972 to advance to the high court without previous judicial experience.

Kagan will have been chosen from among a short list that included federal appellate judges Diane Wood, Sidney Thomas, and Merrick Garland. Garland was considered by many Republicans to be the least liberal of the lot, and thus the most likely to win a speedy confirmation. Though Kagan lacks the legal paper trail of a sitting judge, her views are generally supposed to be leftward of Garland, but rightward of Wood or Thomas.

Kagan clerked for the liberal Justice Thurgood Marshall and worked in the Clinton administration before becoming Dean of Harvard Law.

Obama is set to announce the nomination at 10 a.m. in the East Room of the White House.