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Sandra Day O’Connor Receives State Bar’s Gold Medal Award

Retired Supreme Court Justice Honored with State Bar’s Highest Tribute

ALBANY, NY (01/28/2008; 0750)(readMedia)-- Sandra Day O’Connor, the first woman and the 102nd person to sit on the Supreme Court of the United States, was honored with the New York State Bar Association’s Gold Medal Award on Saturday, February 2 at the conclusion of the Association’s Annual Meeting. The award is the highest recognition given by the State Bar to a lawyer or judge.

Association President Kathryn Grant Madigan of Binghamton (Levene Gouldin & Thompson LLP) presented the award to Justice O’Connor in January in Arizona and a video of that presentation was played at the President’s Dinner at the Harvard Club in Manhattan. Justice O’Connor served on the highest court in the land from 1981 through 2006.

“Sandra Day O’Connor is a trailblazer who represents the very highest ideals of the legal profession and I could not be more pleased to present the State Bar’s highest honor to her,” Madigan said. “Whether it was fighting for a job in the legal profession when most doors were closed to women, to becoming the first female Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States, to fighting for a fair and impartial judiciary, she defied critics and opened doors for those that have followed. The legal profession owes a great deal to her efforts and no one could be more deserving of the Gold Medal Award.”

First awarded in 1952, the prestigious Gold Medal is presented annually to a distinguished member of the bench or bar whose qualifications include outstanding legal ability, as well as leadership in the legal profession and the community. The recipient also is someone actively involved in civic and community activities, and with significant interest in the work of the State Bar.

Justice O’Connor earned her undergraduate and law degrees from Stanford University. Initially offered only secretarial positions with private law firms despite graduating in the top of her class, she began her legal career as a Deputy County Attorney of San Mateo County, California from 1952–1953 she then worked as a civilian attorney for Quartermaster Market Center, Frankfurt, Germany from 1954–1957. From 1958–1960, she practiced law in Maryvale, Arizona, and served as Assistant Attorney General of Arizona from 1965–1969.

In 1969 Justice O’Connor was appointed to the Arizona State Senate and was twice reelected to two-year terms. In 1975 she was elected Judge of the Maricopa County Superior Court and served until 1979, when she was appointed to the Arizona Court of Appeals. President Ronald Reagan nominated her as Associate Justice of the Supreme Court, and she took her seat on September 25, 1981. Justice O’Connor retired from the Supreme Court on January 31, 2006.

Since retiring from the Court, Justice O’Connor has been active in the profession, speaking out on issues that are critical to the New York State Bar Association such as defending judicial independence and keeping partisan politics out of the courts. She also has spearheaded Our Courts, an innovative new program from the Sandra Day O’Connor College of Law. The program is designed to educate middle school students about the judiciary and other parts of government, using a unique web-based learning environment.

The program was created after a September 2006 conference at Georgetown University Law Center chaired by Justice O’Connor and U.S. Supreme Court Justice Stephen Breyer, which was held to discuss judicial independence. The conference brought together leading judges, lawyers, government officials and representatives from business and media and determined that one of the root causes of the judiciary’s present difficulties is the lack of effective civics training in schools. The Our Courts program was then designed to provide young students with additional education about our system of government and specifically about the judicial branch.

Active in a wide variety of other civic matters across the country, including New York, in October 2006 Justice O’Connor was named as a member of the Board of Trustees of the Rockefeller Foundation, a position she currently holds. In October 2007, she visited Cornell as a Distinguished Jurist in Residence, speaking to students about "Women in Leadership Roles." In 1995 she was inducted into the Women’s Hall of Fame in Seneca Falls.

The 74,000-member New York State Bar Association is the largest voluntary state bar association in the nation. Founded in 1876, the Association’s programs and activities have continuously served the public and improved the justice system for more than 130 years.

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