President Bush nominated Harriet Ellan Miers, his White House counsel and former personal attorney, to the Supreme Court yesterday, choosing a woman who broke barriers in the male-dominated Texas legal world but brings no judicial experience or constitutional background to her new assignment. read more

Bush described Miers, who if confirmed would be the third woman to sit on the Supreme Court, as a legal pioneer who repeatedly overcame gender barriers to reach the highest levels of her profession. Before being named White House counsel last year, she served as White House deputy chief of staff as well as staff secretary, a job in which she reviewed virtually every document that went before the president.

Before joining the Bush administration, Miers was Bush's personal attorney in Texas and served as general counsel of his gubernatorial campaign committee. As governor, Bush appointed Miers chairman of the scandal-plagued Texas Lottery Commission, where she earned a reputation as a tough manager after firing two executive directors.

Outside her political work for Bush, Miers was a partner at the Texas law firm of Locke Liddell & Sapp, served two years on the Dallas City Council and was the first woman to be head of the Texas Bar Association. washington post article