Lauren Cohen Bell, a political-science professor at Randolph-Macon College, says she often errs when making predictions, but not this time. As soon as she heard about Justice David H. Souter’s retirement, she said she thought Sonia Sotomayor would be President Barack Obama’s nominee for the U.S. Supreme Court. Bell worked on Sotomayor’s stalled nomination to the 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals throughout 1998, when Bell was a fellow on the Senate Judiciary Committee. The Republican-controlled Senate eventually confirmed Sotomayor.