When Christine Baglow moved from New Orleans into South Bend, Indiana, two decades ago, she found herself at a dinner party with a woman using a powerful resume: former supreme court clerk, professor at Notre Dame Law School, a judge on the US district court of appeals for the seventh circuit.
The woman was Amy Coney Barrett, and she and Baglow had mutual friends.
The judge came across as"tremendously friendly", Baglow explained. "I found her a very gracious and incredibly thoughtful individual. Very type and authentic.
"I probably had the lowest degrees or education of anyone at the table, but to be courteously listened to have my view sought, especially on matters linked to kids and teens, I thought was very nice."
Baglow, 49, is director of youth ministry at St Joseph Catholic Church in South Bend, which Barrett and her family attend.
"Not everybody with her level of schooling responds that way to people and she definitely did," Baglow said.
Donald Trump tweeted that he would select Ginsburg's replacement"without delay", then stated he would select a woman.
Nevertheless, the presidential election is on 3 November and early voting has started. At a bitterly divided country, Senate Republicans' rush to meet with the supreme court has become another lightning rod.
Barrett has some expertise of the storm. She was on Trump's list of possible nominees in 2018, when he had been considering who'd replace Anthony Kennedy, a justice who retired. But the president also had other plans for Barrett.
"I'm saving her Ginsburg," Trump said, based on a Axios report this past year.
The Catholic mother of seven she and her husband, Jesse M Barrett, have five biological children and adopted two out of Haiti -- is regarded as a potential successor to Ginsburg has raised worries among progressives. Many fear that if supported on the seat, Barrett will vote to overturn Roe v Wade, the 1973 ruling that safeguards the right to abortion.
Barrett opposes abortion. And she's fielded questions about her faith and its role in the way she views the law.
Some said the remark was discriminatory against Catholics. However, some who understand Barrett said the line of questioning went to the center of making her a fantastic candidate for the supreme court, as her responses showed a dispassionate character and calm demeanor.
"I just discovered it, to tell the truth, sort of laughable.
"Knowing her as well as I do and never have noticed the way she operates, the only way in which her spiritual convictions will affect what she does as a judge is they give her the humility to say,'What I do is about the law and all about interpreting the law and the basic values of upholding the rule of law and the legal system and nothing else. '''
Since Barrett's star has risen, the media and Democrats' focus on her own views on abortion has defeated others at the Notre Dame community. Former student Alex Blair, now an attorney at the Chicago company Segal McCambridge Singer & Mahoney, known the Guardian into a comment he gave to the South Bend Tribune.
"It has been disorienting to see that the smartest person I understand decreased to how she might vote on a single issue when she is so much more than that," he explained in 2018.
Carozza recalls Barrett as a leading law student when he came on to faculty at Notre Dame in 1996. He said he discovered these questioning from Senate Democrats unjust, in that Barrett doesn't write her faith into her opinions and isn't just one to proselytize.
"I don't think that it's unfair to question somebody who's a judicial appointee about their spiritual beliefs," he said. "If someone says,'I will interpret the law based on what the Qur'an says or what the Bible states,' that is something which in our republic we wouldn't want.
"Why is it unjust in her situation is that it was argued on solely on the grounds of understanding that she's a spiritual individual, instead of any evidence in what she is written or at the manner that she behaved that might interfere with the administration of the law."
