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Washington (CNN) - The political irony for Supreme Court nominee Elena Kagan is who she is, what she hopes to be and the path necessary to fulfilling a long-held dream.

Confirmation hearings for the 50-year-old academic and government lawyer begin Monday. Although she has never been a judge, Kagan is seeking a lifetime job on the nation's highest court.

To get there, she herself must first be judged -- by 17 senators on the Judiciary Committee, who will decide whether she deserves a final floor vote.

The hearings promise to be an intense examination of her record advocating for two Democratic White Houses and her work as a teacher and administrator at top law schools.

Her nomination has attracted little public attention -- especially in the form of political outrage -- since she was tapped by President Obama May 10 to replace the retiring Justice John Paul Stevens. Administration sources say that is exactly what the White House had hoped for, a low-key process designed to generate little political heat this Washington summer.

"The president probably got exactly what he wanted, and that's not someone who makes the far right or the far left terribly happy," said Thomas Goldstein, a prominent Washington lawyer and founder of scotusblog.com. "She seems to be a centrist, pragmatic progressive, someone who's on the left but not the extreme left."

Kagan is poised to become the Supreme Court's youngest member, with perhaps decades of influence ahead of her. That makes the stakes -- politically and socially -- so high at the week-long hearings.

The nominee herself has been quietly working with White House lawyers to prepare for her moment in the political spotlight. Every aspect of her academic and government service has been scrutinized for clues about the kind of justice she would become. Neither the left nor the right seems to have any clear answers on that all-important question.

Judicial Crisis Network released a whitepaper today concerning Solicitor General Elena Kagan, President Obama's nominee to the Supreme Court, A team of JCN legal experts reviewed documents, video and other public records and concluded that "Solicitor General Elena Kagan is far outside the mainstream of American legal thought, out of step with Main Street Americans, and lacks any substantial qualifications to sit on the Supreme Court."

This rating says more about the ABA itself than it does about Elena Kagan. It shows that the ABA has abdicated its self-proclaimed role of passing judgment on the qualifications of judicial nominees. This is further proof..

The American people will be watching Elena Kagan's confirmation hearings next week very closely. According to recent Rasmussen polling nearly 80% of Americans are following news about the Supreme Court nomination of Kagan. It is imperative for the sake of the Constitution that the Judiciary hold an aggressive hearing for this lifetime appointment.

Elena Kagan’s lack of judicial experience and thin record of practical legal experience of any sort is well-known. But her Judiciary Committee Questionnaire responses, released last week, reveal another type of experience she lacks: pro bono experience.

Elena Kagan has become famous as being the dean that built the ice rink at Harvard Law School. Nostalgic images of skaters laughing and spinning away their exam troubles come to mind - Sleigh Ride, Currier & Ives, and all. In reality, it went almost unused, at least when I was a student, because there was no more than a handful of students who actually owned ice skates and had time between classes to take a jaunt around the rink. (It has since been closed due to budget issues - it was hard to justify the expense given its underuse.) It was a brilliant feel-good political move to reach out to students on campus, but it was almost entirely symbolic.

 When it comes to state supreme courts, governors are giving us plenty to talk about.

In late March, I brought attention to the Minnesota Supreme Court and the fact that Governor Pawlenty would be filling a vacancy created by the retirement of Chief Justice Eric Magnuson. As I said then, “With his retirement, the court is evenly divided (3–3) between conservatives and liberals, so whoever Gov. Tim Pawlenty appoints to replace Justice Magnuson will be a key vote.”