We all cheered when Sonia Sotomayor, the Bronx puertorriqueña, donned the robes of Supreme Court Justice. Here, at last, was our very own "wise Latina" sitting on the bench of the highest court of the land, and ruling on the constitutionality of issues of significance for the Latino community: the Affordable Health Care Act, Arizona's SB 1070, and on the docket for 2013, Affirmative Action, Search and Seizure and yet another immigration-based case. 

Sotomayor is the most prominent example of the new face of Latino achievement: lawyers and judges.

There are more than 100,000 Latino lawyers, judges, law professors, legal assistants, and law students in the United States, and according to one 2010 report that studied the upswing in minorities enrolled in law school, the number of Latino law students saw a leap of 874 percent in the past four decades.

 In the Philadelphia area, in the past year three Latino judges and several lawyers have been honored for their extraordinary achievements. 

This week Judge Nitza Quiñones Alejandro and Judge Luis Felipe Restrepo were nominated by President Obama to the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania, where — if they are confirmed —  they will join two other Latinos already serving — Judges Eduardo Robreno and Juan Ramon Sanchez. 

A few weeks past we also featured Judge Teresa Sarmina and lawyer Richard Negrín on this page when they were honored by the Hispanic National Bar Association. Though she didn't appear on our editorial page, Marlene Gomez, an associate at Ballard and Spahr, was also recognized this year with one of HNBA's "Top Lawyers Under Forty" awards.

So, why this connection between law and Latinos? In a 2011 article on a study of Latino lawyers in Washington state, María Chavez wrote: "Their civic involvement is largely intertwined with the complexity of their sense of Latino ethnic identity and history — and the fact that they have had and continue to have unique struggles in their professional experiences."

Moreover, Chavez adds: "[T]hey have transcended many of the obstacles that other Hispanics still contend with. They understand that their professional status is what separates them from the lives of less-privileged Latinos, and because of this many are committed to using their newfound professional status to not only give back to the greater Latino community but also improve prospects for social equity in the greater community."

This strand of civic engagement and giving back to the Latino community are what make the presidential nominations and national awards given to our judges and lawyers noteworthy. But there's more. The same study of minority law school enrollment we cited at the beginning of this editorial says: "rising law school enrollment rates are generally considered to be associated with increased representation on the bench."

In making note of these extraordinary judges and lawyers on the editorial page of Al Día we are, of course, celebrating each of their individual achievements, but also acknowledging the broader impact they will have. 

Here are men and women who stand to inspire a generation of young Latinos in Philadelphia to understand they too can have a voice — and a strong one — in shaping justice.

Here are those who would galvanize young Latinos to reach higher, to dream bigger, and to be second to none.