Read more of our articles on Attorney General Eric Holder’s potential successor here.

With the announcement of Eric Holder’s departure as attorney general has come the inevitable speculation over who his replacement might be. Much of that speculation is credibly pointing toward a female candidate.

Charles Ogletree, a longtime friend of Holder and a onetime Harvard teacher and mentor of Barack and Michelle Obama, repeatedly used the word “she” when referring to Holder’s potential replacement in an interview with MSNBC on Saturday.

“I’m not gonna put her name out,” Ogletree said. “We’ll just see what happens, because I don’t want her to not be able to be confirmed by the Senate.”

Some of the most frequently mentioned names have been male: Democratic Massachusetts Gov. Deval Patrick, who said on Thursday that the job is “not one for me right now”; Solicitor General Donald Verrilli, who defended the Affordable Care Act before the Supreme Court; and Preet Bharara, the U.S. attorney for the Southern District of New York, who is already known for busting Wall Street fraud and who would be the first Indian-American attorney general if picked.

There have also been plenty of female names floated as potential candidates.

Former Homeland Security secretary and current president of the University of California Janet Napolitano is one. There was considerable buzz around Kamala Harris, California’s attorney general, but she has said that she intends to stay in California. Other names include Loretta Lynch, another U.S. attorney in New York; Sen. Amy Klobuchar (D-MN), who has said she has no interest; and former White House counsel Kathryn Ruemmler.

Harris would have been an historic choice, the first female attorney general with African-American or South Asian ancestry.

Another potential history maker in the position would be Jenny Durkan, who recently stepped down as the U.S. attorney in Seattle and who is openly lesbian.

LGBT advocacy groups are rooting for her, and Durkan seemingly hasn’t ruled out taking the position; her spokesperson said it would “not be appropriate” to comment on the speculation.

Durkan would also be a noteworthy pick because she has done extensive work on police accountability and civil rights, key issues for Holder, especially in the wake of police clashes with Ferguson, Missouri, residents.

The White House hasn’t given any indication of who the nominee could be or when the announcement might be made. Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Patrick Leahy (D-VT), who will have a key role in confirming a nominee, is urging the president to act soon, and says that picking a new attorney general should not be a partisan issue. 

A New York Times review found that since the Carter administration, the Senate has taken an average of 18 days to confirm an attorney general nominee once the White House has officially submitted one, and 42 days between the president’s first public announcement of a nominee’s name and the final confirmation.

The earliest Obama could officially submit a nominee would be November 12, which would mean a confirmation date of November 30 if this is a typical nomination process.

Whether this process will be average remains to be seen, since it will be a politically contentious nomination.

If Democrats lose the Senate in the November midterm elections, they could still confirm a new attorney general before the year is out. Republicans, who were strongly opposed to Holder, won’t be pleased to retake the Senate only to have the power of confirming Holder’s replacement mostly out of their hands. Since Democrats made a significant change to Senate rules this year that ended the filibuster for nominations like this one, a simple majority is all it would take.

Republicans could still delay the process by up to a month, though—three weeks in the Senate Judiciary Committee, and a week on the Senate floor.

Senate Minority Whip John Cornyn (R-TX), said Monday that confirming a nominee during the lame-duck session would “take a lot of oxygen out of the air” and “poison the well even further.”

Cornyn did, however, indicate that he could support Kathryn Ruemmler for the position.