 Sotomayor entered Yale Law School in the fall of 1976 , once more on a scholarship . While she believes she again benefited from affirmative action to compensate for somewhat lower standardized test scores , a former dean of admissions at Yale has said that given her record at Princeton , it probably had little effect . At Yale she fit in well although she found there were again few Latino students . She was known as a hard worker but she was not considered among the star students in her class . Yale General Counsel and professor José A. Cabranes acted as an early mentor to her to successfully transition and work within " the system " . She became an editor of the Yale Law Journal and was also managing editor of the student @-@ run Yale Studies in World Public Order publication ( later known as the Yale Journal of International Law ) . Sotomayor published a law review note on the effect of possible Puerto Rican statehood on the island 's mineral and ocean rights . She was a semi @-@ finalist in the Barristers Union mock trial competition . She was co @-@ chair of a group for Latin , Asian , and Native American students , and her advocacy to hire more Hispanic faculty was renewed . 
