Only seven years after Kathleen M. Sullivan arrived at Harvard as a law school professor, she drew national attention as a possible Supreme Court nominee.

She was 36--and had been tenured for all of three years. And that was almost a decade ago.

Now in her second year as dean of Stanford Law School (SLS), she has called her current post "paradise." But Sullivan may find herself in colder climates if Harvard's presidential search committee asks her to become Harvard's next president.

"This is a bit like being mentioned as a candidate for pope--and my chances about as likely," she joked in an e-mail interview with The Crimson.

Harvard law professor Lawrence H. Tribe is a little more optimistic about her chances.

"If she were a priest, she would make a perfect pope," Tribe says.

Sullivan, who holds two endowed chairs in addition to her position as dean of SLS, has a long history with Harvard.

Sullivan graduated from Cornell in 1976 and promptly left for England on a Marshall Scholarship, eventually earning a degree in philosophy, politics and economics.