I worked with Sandra Day O’Connor; she was one of my nine bosses at the Arizona Court of Appeals where I was a Staff Attorney. I’d like to share my experience of her on a personal basis. My judicial inclination is that of Scalia and Thomas; this is not the place for me to talk about my many disagreements with Justice O’Connor; it is to share a bit of my experience of her.

Sandra Day O’Connor was born on March 26, 1930. She was third in her class at the Stanford College of Law when she graduated in 1952, at the age of 22. She was Presiding Editor-in-Chief of the Stanford Law Review. She could not get a job. She offered to work for no salary as a Deputy County Attorney in San Mateo County, without an office, where she shared space with a secretary. She was active in Young Republicans and served as an Assistant Attorney General in Arizona representing the Arizona State Hospital, our facility for mentally ill people. In 1979 she was appointed to the Arizona State Senate to fill a vacancy. She became the State Senate Majority Leader, second only to the President of the State Senate. She ran for the Superior Court and was elected.

In 1979, Arizona’s sole female appellate judge, Mary Schroeder was nominated to the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals. Arizona’s Democratic governor Bruce Babbitt felt that it was critical that Arizona have at least one woman in the appellate courts and he and his wife, Hattie Babbitt, also an attorney, called on Republican Sandy O’Connor and asked her to apply to be appointed the Court of Appeals. She did and he selected her.