Supreme Court Justice John Paul Stevens has hired fewer law clerks than usual, generating speculation that the leader of the court's liberals will retire next year.

If Stevens does step down, he would give President Barack Obama his second high court opening in two years. Obama chose Justice Sonia Sotomayor for the court when Justice David Souter announced his retirement in May.

Souter's failure to hire clerks was the first signal that he was contemplating leaving the court.

Stevens, 89, joined the court in 1975 and is the second-oldest justice in the court's history, after Oliver Wendell Holmes. He is the seventh-longest-serving justice, with more than 33 years and eight months on the court.

In response to a question from The Associated Press, Stevens confirmed through a court spokeswoman Tuesday that he has hired only one clerk for the term that begins in October 2010. He is among several justices who typically have hired all four clerks for the following year by now. Information about this advance hiring is not released by the court but is regularly published by some legal blogs.

Stevens did not say whether he plans to hire his full allotment of clerks or whether he will leave the court at the conclusion of the term that begins next month. Retired justices are allowed to hire one clerk.

A New York law firm is soliciting shareholders to join a class-action lawsuit against Tween Brands Inc. over Dress Barn Inc.'s planned acquisition of the Central Ohio apparel retailer.

Levi & Korsinsky LLP said Tuesday it filed a suit in Delaware Chancery Court, alleging Tween's stock-swap deal with Suffern, N.Y.-based Dress Barn Inc. values the New Albany-based merchant lower than its book value and analysts' stock price targets. Based on terms of the $220 million transaction, Dress Barn is paying about $157 million for Tween shares and paying off the troubled retailer's outstanding bank debt.

The deal for Tween is expected to close in October, provided it gets regulatory and shareholder approvals.

The law firm, which specializes in securities and shareholder litigation, said other terms of the deal, including a break-up fee of more than $5 million, “all but ensure that no superior offer will ever be forthcoming."

Supreme Court nominee Sonia Sotomayor's thin record on the limits of presidential power suggests she will be neither reflexively hostile to broad expansion of a president's authority nor a reliable rubber stamp in support of it.

Three cases in particular offer clues:

_ As a judge on the 2nd Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals, Sotomayor dismissed complaints of commuters about random searches aimed at stopping terrorists on a ferry 300 miles north of New York City.

_ Citing an earlier ruling by the Supreme Court on the same topic, she upheld President George W. Bush's decision to prohibit U.S. aid to international family planning groups that support abortion.

_ On the other hand, Sotomayor joined colleagues in striking down parts of the anti-terror USA Patriot Act that Bush sought automatically prohibiting Internet service providers from telling customers when the government asks for private information about them.

Sotomayor has ruled in only a handful of foreign policy and national security cases that turned in part on constitutional limits to the powers enjoyed by the president, including the government's ability to respond to the threats, fears and vulnerabilities laid bare by the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorism attacks.

In those rulings, as well as a speech she gave in 2003 at the Indiana University law school, she appeared to be more willing to consider robust use of presidential authority than was Justice David Souter, the man she would replace.

Souter, who retired last week, was among the justices most skeptical of the powers asserted by the Bush administration following Sept. 11.

While Sotomayor has leaned heavily on earlier court decisions to support her rulings — as appeals court judges must — she soon could face potentially groundbreaking cases on national security if President Barack Obama asserts executive authority to continue detaining suspected terrorists.

Obama's far-reaching steps to deal with the economy also could provoke legal challenges that could make their way to the high court. The justices recently rejected a bid to stop Chrysler LLC's sale of most of its assets to Italian automaker Fiat.

Supreme Court nominee Sonia Sotomayor earned a "well-qualified" rating from the American Bar Association on Tuesday as she prepared for Senate hearings next week.

The ABA committee that reviewed her qualifications came out with that unanimous rating of the federal appeals court judge and released it in a letter to White House lawyer Greg Craig.

The Senate Judiciary Committee is set to begin hearings Monday on President Barack Obama's choice to replace retired Justice David Souter.

Sotomayor has been rated twice before by the ABA — as a trial judge and appellate judge.

As a U.S. District Court nominee, she was deemed "qualified" by a substantial majority of the committee and "well qualified" by a minority. The last time the ABA reviewed Sotomayor's qualifications — when she was up for the 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals — a majority rated her "well qualified," but that was not unanimous.

For more than 50 years, the ABA has evaluated the credentials of nominees for the federal bench, though the nation's largest lawyers' group has no official role in the process. Supreme Court nominees get the most scrutiny.

"The American Bar Association's unanimous, well-qualified rating of Judge Sotomayor is further evidence of the outstanding experience she will bring to the Supreme Court," said Sen. Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., who heads the Senate Judiciary Committee.

"The ABA's rating — an evaluation of integrity, professional competence, and judicial temperament — should eliminate the doubts of naysayers who have questioned Judge Sotomayor's disposition on the bench."

ABA ratings are "well-qualified," "qualified" and "not qualified." The committee's members interview hundreds of colleagues — confidentially — and scours pages of a nominee's writings before coming up with the rating.

"The ABA Standing Committee on the Federal Judiciary has completed its evaluation of the Honorable Sonia Sotomayor and is of the unanimous opinion that Judge Sotomayor is 'well-qualified' for appointment as an associate justice to the United States Supreme Court," said Kim J. Askew, the committee's head.

Chief Justice John Roberts and Justice Samuel Alito also got unanimous a "well-qualified" rating from the ABA before their Senate hearings.

White House lawyer Harriet Miers, nominated to the high court by President George W. Bush, withdrew before the ABA released its rating.

The ABA had a rocky relationship with Bush. In 2001, Bush ended the ABA's preferential role in checking prospective judicial nominees and decided the administration would not give the group advance word on names under consideration.

Conservatives had been bitter ever since the ABA's mixed review of the qualifications of failed Supreme Court nominee Robert Bork in the Reagan administration.

In March, the Obama administration asked the ABA to resume its historical role in evaluating judicial nominees.

Latino Justice PRLDEF sent the Judiciary Committee more than 350 pages of documents from the 12 years Sotomayor spent on its board, opening what could be an ugly new chapter in the debate over confirming the federal appeals court judge as the first Hispanic justice.

The documents were not immediately available, and committee aides confirmed their receipt on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss them publicly.

Republicans, who have criticized Sotomayor's involvement in the group and called it radical, signaled they were searching for clues in the documents about her stances on the many hot-button issues the civil rights organization handled.

A GOP Judiciary aide said the material details PRLDEF's opposition to failed conservative high court nominee Robert Bork, and its ties to the community-activist group ACORN.

Republicans and Democrats teamed to request the documents, and GOP senators have suggested the delay in uncovering them is grounds for delaying hearings on the nomination, now set to begin on July 13.

Earlier Tuesday, Cesar Perales, PRLDEF's president and general counsel, said he was planning in the coming days to send the Judiciary panel several batches of meeting minutes from Sotomayor's period of service from 1980 until 1992, as well as pleadings from cases it handled while Sotomayor headed the board's litigation committee.

The court on Monday agreed to hear an appeal from Kevin Dwayne Powell, who was convicted of being a felon in possession of a firearm.

When he was arrested, police gave Powell his Miranda warnings, including telling him he had a right to a lawyer before questioning. Powell's lawyers objected, saying police did not tell him he had a right to have a lawyer during his police interrogation.

The Florida Supreme Court overturned the conviction, saying the police's Miranda warning was insufficient.

A disbarred New Jersey lawyer is headed to state prison for 15 years for blowing $4 million of his clients' money in Atlantic City.

Michael P. Rumore, 50, who ran his law practice from the basement of his Lyndhurst home, was supposed to use the money for real estate closings.

However, his lawyer said "not a dime of it went anywhere else" but the slots in seaside casinos.

Rumore suffers from bipolar disorder and depression, said the attorney, Anthony P. Alfano.

Like all gambling addicts, Rumore always believed he could "hit the big one and pay it back," Alfano said.

Rumore surrended his law license and was disbarred last fall as part of his January guilty plea in Superior Court in Hackensack to money laundering and theft.

Although a state judge ordered him Friday to pay more than $6.2 million in restitution, but Alfano says he doesn't have it.

Rumore pleaded guilty in January to charges of money laundering and theft.

Depending on certain circumstances, he could be released in three years.