An excellent column on this by Stuart Taylor [the link expires in a week].
What Obama needs, in short, is an intellectually stellar, not-too-old, Hispanic woman lawyer with empathy for the powerless; views on social issues that are predictably liberal but not so activist as to inflame the Right; views on presidential war powers that are predictably deferential but not so much so as to inflame the Left; broad real-world experience; and, of course, rapport with Obama.
No such human being exists, I suspect. I also suspect that the president may come to see the opportunity to choose a new justice as a lot less fun than a law professor might imagine.
The Right's problem is their assumption that "empathy" means favoritism toward the sorts of parties that conservatives tend not to like. I think they're mistaking the word for "sympathy." As I understand it, empathy means nothing more or less than being able to put oneself in another's shoes and view an issue as s/he would; ir neither necessitates nor implies agreement with that view. I would think that the ability to empathize in this sense--to view a legal case in the "reasl world" terms that the parties (and others) are likely to see it--is an indispensable tool for any good judge. And yes, real world experience usually helps one to have empathy.