Sandra Day O’Connor Attorney General Reno, President Cooper, and distinguished guests and members of the American Bar Association. My feelings at this moment are of gratitude for this signal honor you’ve bestowed on me. And of amazement over the unlikelihood of at all, that a cowgirl from Arizona would have found her way not only through law school, but through 45 years of experience in the legal profession all the way to our nation’s highest court and to This wonderful honor tonight in the city of San Francisco. It was here in this city in 1952, that I was sworn in to the State Bar of California. And that lovely courthouse now restored for the Court of Appeals. It was just south of here in Redwood City that I persuaded the county attorney to give me my first job as a lawyer. Follow the road to this podium has in fact been a long one. It seems very short to me. It feels like only a few years ago, that law school opened my eyes to the world of the rule of law, to the intrigue of legal analysis, and the satisfaction of solving people’s disputes through negotiation. And when all else fails, litigation, the American Bar Association was in existence long before I entered the legal profession. It’s been working throughout my years as a lawyer to study and analyze different subject areas of the law and to propose and help achieve improvements. It has been a strong supporter of a qualified, competent and independent judiciary. It has worked hard to support adequate compensation for