No big surprise here, but the U.S. Senate just voted 68-31 to confirm Sonia Sotomayor as the next U.S. Supreme Court Justice. Sotomayor will be the first Hispanic and only the third female justice ever.

Whether the justice would be confirmed was never really in much doubt; the biggest piece of news out of the vote was maybe that ailing Sen. Robert Byrd managed to show up to cast his vote. But the inevitability of the decision should in no way downplay the historic significance of Sotomayor joining the highest court in the land.

For you lawyer types out there, how fast does the scramble to get one of the new justice’s clerkships start?