US President Barack Obama's Supreme Court nominee, Elena Kagan, has begun her confirmation hearing in front of the Senate Judiciary Committee.Excerpts released in advance of her testimony reveal a focus on "even-handedness, principle, and restraint."
She will emphasise that the Supreme Court must be "properly deferential to the decisions of the American people and their elected representatives".
Ms Kagan is expected to be approved by the Democrat-dominated panel.
Her confirmation is unlikely to be entirely smooth though - Republican senators have expressed concerns about her views on the military and her lack of judicial experience.
The 50-year-old solicitor-general will face tough questions over banning military recruiters from using Harvard Law School facilities while she was the school's dean.
The ban, which was later revoked, was the result of the prohibition on openly gay service members.
If confirmed, Ms Kagan would be the youngest member of the current court and the first justice in 39 years not to have been a judge.
Ms Kagan was nominated to replace retiring Justice John Paul Stevens, 90, who is considered one of the court's leading liberals.
The selection of a Supreme Court justice gives a president the opportunity to influence US public life for decades, as the justices are not bound by term limits.
The first day of the judiciary committee on Monday hearing is likely to be dominated by statements from its 19 senators, after which Ms Kagan will herself speak.
She is expected to begin answering questions only on Tuesday.
"You're going to see a brilliant woman, a brilliant legal mind," the committee's chairman, Democratic Senator Patrick Leahy, told CBS on Sunday.
Sen Leahy said he was confident Ms Kagan would be approved by the panel, and then confirmed by whole Senate before the August recess.
'Confirmation, not a coronation'
But the top Republican on the committee, Senator Jeff Sessions, said she was seen as a "dangerous nominee" given her relative youth, limited legal record and political affiliation, and stressed that her approval was far from guaranteed.
"This is a confirmation, not a coronation," he told CBS. "She has the least experience of any nominee at least in the last 50 years."
Speaking in Toronto on Sunday, President Obama dismissed the reservations expressed by some senators as "pretty thin gruel".
"Having said that, I expect that my Republican colleagues and my Democratic colleagues should ask her tough questions, listen to her testimony, go through the record, go through all the documents that have been provided to the Senate Judiciary Committee, and then vote their conscience," he added.
Correspondents say Ms Kagan is regarded as a liberal on most issues.
But she has worked with conservatives and even attracted a liberal backlash against her support for continuing Bush administration policies on state secrets and the use of military commissions to try terrorism suspects, they add.
Her staunch advocacy of gay rights may concern Republicans.
She went through a fairly smooth confirmation process in the Senate for the post of solicitor-general this year, when seven Republicans voted for her.
Senate Democrats should have enough votes to confirm her, but they would not be able to halt blocking or stalling tactics by any Republican senators.
Early in her career Ms Kagan was a clerk for a US Court of Appeals judge and later for former Justice Thurgood Marshall. And like Mr Obama, she worked on the Harvard Law Review as a student.
She later taught at and became the first woman dean at Harvard Law School and served in the White House under President Bill Clinton.
If confirmed, Ms Kagan would become the fourth woman justice on the Supreme Court, following Sonia Sotomayor, Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Sandra Day O'Connor, now retired. She would also be the third Jewish justice on the current court, along with six Catholics.
