A Tribute to Justice Sandra Day O’Connor

A TRIBUTE TO JUSTICE SANDRA DAY O’CONNOR

Every woman lawyer then practicing in America remembers her excitement on July 7, 1981, upon hearing that a woman, Sandra Day O’Connor, unknown to most of us, had been named to the United States Supreme Court. We knew from our own experiences the great positive message the appointment sent to the world: that the height of intellect, scholarship, and wit, that Justice itself, came literally in a woman’s form. As we learned something of her life and accomplishments we each also, truth be known, heaved a secret sigh of relief. In this historic appointment were clearly the hallmarks of excellence and experience required of every appointment to the Supreme Court. This time justice came looking like us instead of the other guys. We knew that for our “team,” the first simply also had to be far better than best. Sandra Day O’Connor had been on the Law Review at Stanford, among the top in her class at that great law school. She lived the private life of a wife and mother. She knew the frustration of being unable to get a job because she was a “she.” We found that she had been a legislator and a judge. Hers were the skills needed for a meaningful presence on the Court: proven scholarship, practice at decisionmaking, and the political knack needed to succeed in the give and take world of nine strong-willed, brilliant individuals, all the while remaining resilient and persuasive. We could not know that fifteen years later she would emerge as perhaps