Elena Kagan previously served as a professor of law at the University of Chicago Law School. From 1995 to 1999, Dean Kagan served as Associate Counsel to U.S. President Bill Clinton and Deputy Assistant to the President for Domestic Policy and Deputy Director of the Domestic Policy Counsel.

Kagan is a native of New York City. She graduated from Hunter College High School in 1977, received an A.B. from Princeton University in 1981, an M. Phil. from Worcester College, Oxford University, in 1983, and a J.D. from Harvard Law School in 1986. She was a law clerk for Judge Abner Mikva on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit and for Justice Thurgood Marshall of the U.S. Supreme Court. In 1999, President Clinton nominated Kagan to serve as a Judge on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit, but the Republican led Senate Judiciary Committee declined to bring her nomination forward for a hearing.

Kagan has been dean of Harvard Law School since 2002 when she took over from Dean Robert C. Clark who had served as dean for over a decade. The focus of her tenure has been improving student happiness, constructing new facilities, and reviewing the legal curriculum. She has been credited for bringing new vigor to her post and for employing a consensus-building leadership style. She also kicked off a $400 million capital campaign in 2003 it is is scheduled to end in 2008. Reports are that the Law School has raised about $260 million to date, putting it slighly ahead of schedule. Kagan is also credited with overcoming ideological disputes among the Law school faculty that had hindered new faculty appointments.