Note: At the time this interview was conducted, the Sandra Day O'Connor Institute was known as "O'Connor House." The organization's name was changed in 2015.

Ruth McGregor
I'm Ruth McGregor. And it is September 22, 2014.

O'Connor House
So, Justice McGregor, tell us about the first time you met Sandra Day O'Connor.

Ruth McGregor
The first time I saw Sandra Day O'Connor, I didn't actually meet her. She was the majority leader of the Senate. And she chaired an evening session for, on the, a hearing on the Equal Rights Amendment. And we went down, I wasn't even a law student yet. And saw her convene that meeting and manage the meeting and left so impressed with this woman we had just seen. Then about five years later, I was hired to work as a summer associate at Fennemore Craig. And John O'Connor was a partner there. And the O'Connors were always very good about having new lawyers and summer associates come to their house and, of course, entertain and get to know all of us. So that was the next time that I met her.

O'Connor House
Wonderful. So tell us about your time at Fennemore Craig and how that segued to the Supreme Court and being her first clerk.

Ruth McGregor
Okay. Alright. It's amazing how decisions that you can't foresee will matter in your later life. I went to work at Fennemore Craig as the first woman that they had hired, and really liked all of the people at the firm. They had a practice of assigning one of the senior partners as a mentor for each new associate. And it so happened that John O'Connor was assigned to be my mentor. And so I worked a lot with John. And as the years went by, of course, we got to know all of the spouses in, of the lawyers in the firm, including Sandra O'Connor She was, had just been elected as a judge when I started my permanent employment at Fennemore Craig in the fall of 1974. And so I knew her first on a social basis. And we would go to firm outings and firm dinners. We'd be at dinners in people's homes. And we, of course, could never appear before her since John was a partner in the firm. That I, so I only heard about her as a judge from other lawyers who appeared. And she had the reputation of being very prepared and not wasting any time and not wanting to have any nonsense going on in her courtroom.

But the first time that I really got to know her was at one of our firm weekends, we had them every fall, a weekend at some resort. And it was my very first one. So my husband and I were there, and we were just meeting these people. And we were sitting at a table. And they put a senior partner in each of the tables. And Cal Udall was at our table along with his wife, Dory. And we're sitting there calmly enjoying our meal with a couple of cocktails ahead of time. And suddenly, a cork landed in the middle of our table. And we looked around and who was throwing corks at us, but Judge O'Connor, who thought that we needed to have a little more activity going on. So I think, as I recall, some rolls got thrown back at, some more corks, but she was just always, you know, ready to engage people in, to make sure everybody was having a really good time.

So you know, as years went on, we knew her better. When I became a partner and started going to the partners' meetings, she would be there. And while we were in meetings, she and my husband would play tennis. Because my husband was the only male partner there, so she, of course, made sure that he was taken care of. So we just had a wonderful relationship. And in fact, the weekend before her nomination to the Supreme Court was announced was another firm party in Prescott. We went there for the Fourth of July weekend. She was there. She had been to Washington, had spoken with the president, but was sure at that point that nothing was coming of it. And we all had our usual good time in Prescott, and she was in her cowboy hat and her boots, and we went out on a trail ride. And then the, about a week later, it was announced that the President had nominated her.

O'Connor House
So how did you, then, become invited or asked to serve as her clerk?

Ruth McGregor
After her nomination was announced, the Justice Department sent her a briefing book so that she could have a chance to get prepared on the issues of the moment. And she was not entirely satisfied with some of the work in the briefing book. So one weekend, five or six of us went down to the firm library. This was before we were doing much with internet legal research. And we spent the weekend doing research and writing memos for her. And so then we gave her our own briefing book, which we saw with great joy she carried to all of her interviews with the senators.

But during that weekend, I said to one of the young lawyers there, you should see about clerking for Sandra O'Connor. And he said, "Why don't you do it?" I said, "Oh, I can't possibly do it." I was, you know, I've been in practice for seven years. I was a partner. I had trials coming up. We were settled in Phoenix, my husband had his medical practice. But I went home, and I started thinking about it, and thought, there'd never be another opportunity like this. So with kind of my heart pounding, I wrote a letter to her. Again, we didn't have email. We didn't have voice waiting on phones. And I sent a letter saying that I understood that she would need to hire at least one law clerk and wondered whether she'd be interested in talking to me about it. We then promptly left on 10 days vacation and so there was no way for her to get in touch with me.

At the same time as I sent the letter, it turned out, she made a call because John O'Connor had told her she should think about asking me to go back as a law clerk. So when we returned from vacation, her call was waiting for me. And I called her, and she said, "Yes, for sure. You need to come as a clerk." But then, and I think this is so typical of her, she said, "But what does Bob think about this? Is this okay with Bob?" And I said, "Well, obviously, we had talked about this beforehand, and he had agreed it was a great opportunity." She said, "Let's do it." And so I made arrangements to turn all my cases over to somebody else. I had, I actually resigned from the firm because, as usual, federal regula--regulations were not entirely clear, and I wasn't sure that I could just be on leave and be an employee of the federal government. So I resigned from the firm, although then they rehired me when I finished. So within a very short time, I was on my way to Washington to spend from September through the next July.

O'Connor House
So tell us about the time when you first went to Washington, you were her first clerk. Tell us about those early days when you arrived.

Ruth McGregor
The thing that no one could really appreciate, I think, unless you were there is how little planning, at least in 1981, was done for the arrival of a new justice. Here, somebody was coming to be one of nine justices on the most important court in the world. And no one had made any plans. They hadn't produced any sort of manual about how they handled employees. There was nothing about procedures the court followed. When she arrived and we first went to her chambers, there was no furniture in the chambers. The notion being she could choose her own, but she only had a week from the time she was confirmed until they had the first, their first summer, their summer calendar where they went over all the cases that were pending to see whether or not they would be accepted for review.

So there were thousands of cases waiting for her to prepare for, and there was nothing in the rooms. There were no file cabinets. We told people, it wasn't that we just didn't have a filing system, we didn't have file cabinets. We had very simple computers, they were weighing computers, everything had to be separately programmed, because there, there was, there was no software with, pre-programmed software. Nothing was arranged for her. She brought with her her secretary who had been with her on the Court of Appeals in Arizona. But each justice has two secretaries, the first secretary and the second secretary. So we needed a first secretary, somebody who knew the ways of the court who knew how things work. But nothing had been done to sort of set that up for her.

So here was, now, Justice O'Connor with all of this attention focused on her, with people watching everything that she did, with an enormous amount of work to get done because she couldn't start doing this work until she had been confirmed. And with all of that, she had to be choosing furniture for her outer office as well as her own private chambers. She had to be getting everything organized, the law clerks had, had to be trying to figure out how we would divide up and handle all of these cases. She and the law clerks were all getting ready for arguments, which would be in two weeks on the first Monday of October. So from the outside, I think people could imagine there was a lot of work to be done for a state court judge to get ready to sit on the United States Supreme Court. But in addition to the intellectual work, the professional work, there were just so many other things to do.

And of course, let's not forget the fact that the O'Connor's had just moved from their house in Phoenix, which they had lived in for more than 20 years, and were trying to settle into an apartment while all of this other stuff was going on. It was, if you try to, if, I think if we try to put ourselves in that position of having to handle all of that, at one time, it really puts into focus just how much she accomplished, personally and professionally, within a very short period of time. It's really almost unbelievable.

O'Connor House
So when you first walked into the office, there was a story she, we heard that there were, you sat on the floor.

Ruth McGregor
Yes. When we first walked into her--there's the outer office, and then there's a small office that two clerks used, and then her private chambers. And the outer office was a big room. So when we first walked in, there were no desks, there were no chairs. What they did have was all the petitions for certiorari that had been filed during the summer, these hundreds of requests for the Court to review lower court cases, the responses and replies, all stacked up in stacks about three feet tall, around the edge of the room, all around the walls.

So with only a week to get ready, we had to get everything prepared. And we started going through them and realized there was no rhyme or reason to how these hundreds, thousands of petitions were set out. So we went through, we put them all in numerical order so that they would have some semblance of order. And then the justices all had, at that time it was a green sheet, one for each case where they would keep track of the vote as to whether or not to take the case for review and so forth. And so we put the sheets, and we put the the petitions in order. And she had all these notebooks of things. She walked into her first conference. And again, like everyone as accomplished as she, she likes to be prepared. And she likes to have things done right. And only when she arrived at conference, did someone tell her that they did not consider the petitions in numerical order. They considered them in the order in which they became ready, when the response had been filed, to the petition. So now she had to go flipping back and forth through all of these thousands of pages to find the correct petition. It's not something that somebody wants to go to. And that's why I say, it was astounding that no one had bothered to set out something that, that described the basic procedures of the court. It would have made our job easier. But yeah, I mean, she just did it and got it done.

O'Connor House
So how did you divide the portion of work you did, you said you divided up with the other clerks, how did you ascertain what, what you were going to be focused on?

Ruth McGregor
Well, much of the work of the Court and the, the law clerks at the Court is deciding whether or not a case should be taken for review, whether its petition for certiorari should be granted. Justice O'Connor was part of what was called the cert pool. The certiorari pool where seven of the nine justices pool their clerks. And when the petitions and responses were ready, they just were divided on a random basis among the clerks of the seven justices. Two of the justices did their own review. So each clerk, then, would write a certain memo on whichever case was assigned to us. And that would be circulated to the other chambers. That helped to reduce the work of the Court because many of the petitions that were filed, were obviously not the kind of case that the United States Supreme Court would review. Once cases were set for oral arguments, then the law clerks would divide them amongst ourselves as to which case we would work on with Justice O'Connor. Sometimes someone would have a particular interest in a particular case. And we tried to accommodate that. And if you were assigned a case to get ready for oral argument, you would prepare a long, detailed bench memorandum for Justice O'Connor, which she would have in addition to the briefing that had been done. And if that case happened to be assigned to Justice O'Connor to write either a majority or a dissenting opinion, then the law clerk would essentially stay with that case, and do the drafting, then to go to her for review and editing.

O'Connor House
So tell us , what was the reaction and response in Washington and the general public, and here's the first woman . Talk about that.

Ruth McGregor
I think everybody was wondering what the reaction of Washington and the public would be to having the first woman on the United States Supreme Court. And from my observation, it was almost entirely positive. People, of course, were just entranced with her. That's never changed. But she looks just like her pictures. So people would always recognize her. So wherever we were, you know, in a restaurant, if we were eating, people would come up. It almost always starts the same way. "Justice O'Connor, I don't want to interrupt you, but..." and then of course, they would interrupt and ask whatever they wanted. And she got stopped all the time. I was with her once in a grocery store in Georgetown where we were shopping for groceries on our way from the Court. And somebody came up and asked for her autograph. They, she said yes, as she often did, but they didn't have anything, they gave her a kettle to sign (laughs). But people just wanted her attention. They wanted to see her, if they could say hello to her they wanted to say hello to her. And she couldn't go anywhere without being recognized. Because I was from Phoenix and knew some of the same people that the O'Connors had, I was put in charge of doing the first look-through of the mail. We got, unfortunately we didn't start counting pieces of mail until a few months into the session, but even about three months in, we were getting about 500 letters a day. And that volume had decreased.

Ruth McGregor
So I went through them, I think I should apologize to any of our friends who didn't hear back because that means I probably didn't recognize them and gave away their letter. But I would go through and try to sort out letters from friends and professional acquaintances, from those that were just, from other people, from the public. But we got all of these letters from people who just wanted to say how much, how happy they were that she was there. And as always, a few things stand out. I remember one from a man who described himself as a 90 year old grandfather from Kentucky. And he said he had been waiting his whole life to see a person on the court and was so glad that he had a chance to see it. Then we would get things, people responded very personally to her. It might be because she was the first woman, it might be because they saw her, because her hearings were, the first time they were televised, and a combination of those factors, probably. But they would send pictures of their grandchildren's weddings. We got home-knit socks and homemade fudge. This was before 9/11, so all those things came to our office. We would get scarves, and we tried to be careful because any gift at that time over $50 had to be recorded. And sometimes we just didn't feel we could accept the things that were given. We got a beautiful sand painting from someone, from a person in Navajo County in Arizona. And then we got a few really bizarre things, you know, nude pictures. But mostly the, other than, of all, I had to have read thousands of these letters that came in. And there were only two that I read that were critical of a woman being appointed to the court. So I think it's another example of where the public was pretty much ahead of where the leaders were for a long time. And we heard that a lot from women in law, that clients, the public would accept women doing a particular thing. But once it could be seen that they accepted someone on the United States Supreme Court, that argument had to be, kind of, put aside by people in, in the legal profession.

O'Connor House
I've had some women tell me they remember exactly where they were when they heard that Sandra Day O'Connor was nominated to the Supreme Court. So as a woman working for the first woman, and in your own right exceedingly accomplished, how do you think Sandra Day O'Connor changed the landscape for women, not just in law, but in other areas?

Ruth McGregor
Yeah. Well, first, I'm one of those women who remembers exactly where I was when the announcement came. I was driving to work after this weekend in Prescott, and I turned on the radio, and President Reagan was talking, but it was a minute or so into his remarks. And he was saying, you know, "She is truly a person for all seasons," I, but I didn't know the name because he had said the name at the beginning. So driving, I said, "Who is it? Who is it?" Because a lot of people think, you know, the first woman's name was floated, probably not that name. And then, so way at the end they said that it was Sandra Day O'Connor from Arizona. And I just burst into tears, I had to pull my car to the side of the road. It was, it was so emotional. I think a lot of women lawyers reacted that same way. It was something that was always missing. A recognition of women as part of the profession at the highest level was always missing. And of course, law is different from other professions. There's no other profession that has one body at the top of the profession. Medicine doesn't have the supreme medical board and engineering doesn't have an engineering board that oversees all of engineering. But law has the United States Supreme Court. And it made a difference. It made a difference as to the way we felt about ourselves and the possibilities that were available. It made a difference, I do believe, as to how people saw women in law. Now, it didn't change overnight. It took a long time for women to be fully accepted in the legal profession. And some would say that, say that's still not true. But there really was a big change in attitude. And all of us felt in some way, I think, that this was partly our accomplishment.

O'Connor House
So as you were saying, for women , what sort of letters or feedback or reaction to...what, since you were there from the beginning in Washington, did...You mentioned the letters, but were there other, beyond the letters, were there other, correspondence or phone calls from other women or leaders around the world?

Ruth McGregor
When Justice O'Connor came to the court, she heard from women leaders all across the world. And it was important to them, too. They looked to the United States, and we had not exactly been showing a leadership position as far as women being, being successful in the highest levels of government. And also, you know, not just leaders, but women who were lawyers in other, in other countries. It was something that went far beyond the borders of this country, the importance of having her name to the Court. People were looking to her to show that women deserved a place at the table. I've often thought she must have, sometimes at least, thought about how much we all were depending on her. Because we, we all saw this as our chance. And you know, she has a great saying about, "It's wonderful to be the first woman on the Supreme Court, but you don't want to be the last." And I think she must have felt that way a little bit. I think women in general, as they move into new areas know that people look at them as not just themselves but as representing a group of people, as representing women in general. And, but I think she was in a way more than willing to take on that responsibility, because it was important to her, too, that women be given an opportunity.

O'Connor House
So talk about her first, you know, occasions on the bench. The impact of Sandra Day O'Connor sitting in on a Supreme Court hearing.

Ruth McGregor
Well, as you probably know, when the justices come out to sit on the bench, it begins with the Chief Justice. And then they come in in order of seniority. And they go right, left, right, left, right, left. So Justice O'Connor, as the youngest justice, was the last to come in and then moved and took her seat on the left of the bench. All of the law clerks are there for the first day of argument. After the first few, we kind of, tended to go only for cases that we were assigned to. But, and of course, the courtroom is full. And it was just almost like the time of the announcement, to see her coming out and take her place on the Court. I mean, it really had happened. She really was there. And then came the time that she asked her first question. I mean, all of these things were the first time something had happened. A woman had never sat in one of those chairs. A woman had never asked a question of the lawyers arguing the case. So for all of this, it was one milestone after another. Everything she did was a first, it was astounding.

O'Connor House
And what was the reaction of the attorneys who appeared before her? And when she asked a question, how were there, any instances that you observed that were...were there any instances that particularly stand out?

Ruth McGregor
I don't think that the lawyers responded to her differently than to the men on the bench. I do remember later, when Justice Ginsburg was on the bench, one of the lawyers referred to her as Justice O'Connor. And she made some comment about looking alike. But, I mean, you're arguing to the United States Supreme Court, you're going to be very respectful of any question from any of the members of the Court. So I think within that small, professional world, she was treated as the other justices would have been treated. I certainly would expect that of lawyers, and I didn't see anything to say that that wasn't true.

O'Connor House
So, in the almost a year over in Washington, what are some of your memories that are sort of those priceless nuggets from your time there in Washington?

Ruth McGregor
I have so many memories of that time in Washington. First, when we first got there, John O'Connor was primarily in Phoenix winding down his practice. So, as you probably know, Sandra O'Connor likes to have a companion when she decides to do something. She was being invited to something every night in Washington, and often because she worried that I was lonesome without my husband there, she would ask me to go with her. So I had these quite extraordinary experiences. But, we would go to receptions. And in Washington, people say, and my observation is it's true, you know, what your position are, or what your position is, determines what your value is to other people. In Washington, John O'Connor used to say, Washington is full of "used tos." I used to be this, I used to be that. But when we would go to these receptions, I would arrive with Justice O'Connor and you know, people are very nice and they talk, but then they would say, "What do you do? What, what is your job?" And I would say, "Well, I'm a law clerk at the Supreme Court." This was not a power position. I couldn't offer anything to the people I was talking with. So you immediately get the look over your shoulder to find somebody more important to go and talk with. But I got to meet wonderful people that way.

I also had the, the unusual experience during the first few weeks at the Court. It was very easy in those days to walk around the Court, the only thing that kept you from going down the hallways to the Justices' chambers were these wooden dividers that were on rollers and not put into place. It was before we worried so much about security. But during those first several weeks, I was getting to know the Court and was walking around, and the, the police force, the security force would stand up when I went by. And I thought, that was very nice and very polite. And then, I was with the other clerks, law clerks down in the Clerk of the Court's office one day, and a young custodial worker was down there. And he said to me, "Can I have your autograph?" I thought, "This is kind of strange." But I thought, "Well, people collect Pepsi cans, maybe he collects law clerks' autographs." And I said, "Well, it's kind of hard to do right now. Why don't you just come down to the chambers?" And he said, "Oh, you won't remember me." And I say, "I'll remember you." And I realized afterward that the, the security force and this young gentleman thought I was Justice O'Connor. I mean, she was 51, I was 38, I guess all middle-aged women look alike. And so for a very short time, I got to have the attention given to one of the justices on the Court.

But it was just an extraordinary experience to work with the people at the Court. It was, and still is, but then a very small staff of people. There were the nine justices, there were 34 law clerk that year. And four people who worked in the Supreme Court Law Library. That was basically the professional staff. And then, of course, the clerk's office, which also wasn't very big. And so you got to know all of these people working within one branch of government and doing it very efficiently with a very small staff.

We had the experience of the young women at the, at the Court telling Justice O'Connor that they had been trying to get an aerobics class started for years. And she thought, "This is a very good idea" because she was looking to see how she could get exercise in. So they told her one morning, and she told someone at the Court. And by the next morning, we had an instructor, we had mats, and we had the gym--called the highest court in the land, it's a basketball court--closed down for two hours in the morning for the women's aerobics class. So it was a good example of how women can help other women. And then within a few weeks, somebody had gotten us T-shirts that said, "Women work out at the Supreme Court." Very cute, I thought.

So we had, we had those kinds of experiences, we got to see the very highest level of appellate law being practiced. We saw some wonderful lawyers appear before the Court, some not quite as good. It wasn't as much a professional Supreme Court Bar then. But we got to work on these cases that were the very most important, difficult cases within our legal system. And we got to see how careful the justices were with what they did, how careful it was with writing of the opinions. It was, it was, just from the standpoint of being somebody involved in the legal profession, just an extraordinary experience. So, there's, there's really nothing else like it within our profession.

O'Connor House
So, what is, how did Justice O'Connor, how would you describe how she, basically her, I hesitate to say methodology, but just in terms of her style and how she conducted her business?

Ruth McGregor
As far as as how Justice O'Connor ran her chambers, it was, as you would expect, very organized and very orderly. We all had our assignments. We knew when they were to be done. She expected them to be there when she said, and I don't think there was a time that that didn't happen. The three law clerks who Justice Potter Stewart had hired before he retired, she kept on and they were wonderful. They were just terrific. And so everybody was very much focused on getting things done on time. She didn't have to usually repeat things. Once they were said, we knew what was expected of us. But she also tries very hard to make her law clerks part of her professional family. And so we would come in on Saturday morning before oral arguments, and that's when we would talk about the cases that were coming. She would have read the briefs, she would have read our bench memoranda, she would have read any additional cases that she wanted to see. And then we would all talk about them. And we were all welcome to discuss our point of view. Not that we expected to persuade her, but she wanted to make sure that she wasn't overlooking any of the arguments or approaches that she might not have thought of. And it was a really valuable experience for all of us.

Then, once a case was assigned, as I think is true about all the justices, she would assign a law clerk to draft an opinion, and then we would go on from there working with her on it, and it would be circulated to the other chambers and then more changes would be made until finally it was done. One of the things that I really noticed with her and that I tried later to put into practice, because I think it's such a good approach, but difficult, is that she is always focused on whatever she is doing. She knew just innately what science now tells us, that you can't really multitask. All you can do is stop and start a different, a lot of different things, and you lose time. Every time you stop, stop one thing and start another. So she would just focus. It might be a case, it might be an argument, it might be her tennis match. It might be a book that she was reading. It might be someone she was talking with. But whatever she was doing, she focused on that. I, for some reason, that reminds me of a great story.

You know, the author, Alan Drury, who wrote Advice and Consent and some other Washington novels came that year, and asked for a chance to talk with her, to interview her. She didn't usually give interviews then that first year, but she was impressed with him and his work. And so he came in with a young assistant and came in and sat with her. And I was there and one of the other law clerks. And of course, it took about two minutes and then she was asking him questions. And he didn't get a chance really to interview her. I'm sure she knew this when she said he could come in. And as he left there, he was kind of grumbling, and he goes, "That's the first time I've ever been interviewed," so he never got, but she wanted to know. And she, I saw her that way was so many things. What, whatever was important to people, she wanted to learn about that. And it was just, you felt the focus, you felt that, you needed to respond to it. And people did tell her, and they knew she was listening and that she cared about what she was saying. So I really saw that focus.

The other thing, and I've heard her say this, was her ability to make a decision and then let it go. So she doesn't make it, she wouldn't make a decision then fuss and fret about whether she should have done it differently. She would just do the very best she could decide, what the outcome was, the best outcome as she saw it, and then she would get that done and move on to the next thing. You save a lot of time there, too, by not continually looking back and second-guessing yourself on something that you can't change.

So it was a very orderly chambers, but also a very warm chambers. There were birthday parties and Christmas parties and an end-of-the-year party with a performance by the law clerks. So she managed to combine the professional and the personal very well, which I think is one of her real skills.

O'Connor House
So who were those three clerks that were held on from Potter Stewart?

Ruth McGregor
Well, one was a man named Brian Cartwright, who had been president of the Harvard Law Review. He had a PhD in physics of some sort and was just so smart and so well organized. He went into the private practice of law in Los Angeles, he has since retired. Another was a woman named Debbie Merritt, who, interestingly enough, the year before had clerked for Ruth Bader Ginsburg while she was on the First Circuit Court of Appeals, which means that Debbie is the only person who will ever have been a law clerk to both of the first two women on the United States Supreme Court. Although Justice Ginsburg didn't come to the Supreme Court until later. Debbie, after short time in private practice, is, has been a law professor at Ohio State University, and she ran for a time the John Glenn Institute there. Just, she was a graduate of Columbia. And the last, the third of them was John Dwyer, who was a graduate of Boalt Hall [Berkeley]. And he, eventually, he had a Ph.D in some science area, to biochemistry or something. And he eventually went to the federal defender's office and then also into academia, and now I think is a private appellate lawyer. So they were extraordinary people. She was so fortunate that they were there. And the Court wisely had found a way to keep them on. I think they were called deputy clerks or something during the summer because they couldn't be hired by, as law clerks until Justice O'Connor was confirmed.

O'Connor House
So could you talk a little bit about John O'Connor, and that time in Washington, the transition, tell us in your view about that?

Ruth McGregor
I've often thought that the sometimes unsung hero of Justice O'Connor's success in Washington is John O'Connor. Right? Think about what he changed. He was a senior partner in a major Phoenix law firm with a well-established practice. Great ties to the community, both political and and community organizations. Well known, well respected as a lawyer, he was such a good lawyer. And then all of that had to change. And changing cities as a lawyer is not an easy thing to do. But he found a position that he liked in Washington. I think he was, he was happy with it. But it was just a very different kind of position for him.

We saw them a lot. And I think he was pleased to be there. He was so proud of everything that she did. He enjoyed their travels and the people they met. And of course, he's well known for two things other than law, his dancing and his jokes, some good and some really, really awful. But he, you know, he, he stayed John O'Connor, he was just in a different city. But I don't, I, she says that he was the one who told her she had to accept the position when she had any sort of hesitancy at all. And I don't think there was ever a moment's doubt in his mind that she was the right person for that position, and that she had to go and do it, because no one could do it as well as she could. And he was right about that.

O'Connor House
Thank you. Is it possible to describe your most enduring memory of Sandra Day O'Connor, is there one that stands out? Anything in particular, most enduring memory?

Ruth McGregor
If somebody just says, Sandra--Justice Sandra Day O'Connor to me, I think the memory that most endures for me is when she came onto the bench the first time. That is just something, it's like a videotape that runs in my mind. I see her coming in, I remember trying not to sob as I was in the courtroom, and I know I wasn't alone in that. It was just a culmination, not just of her work, but of the work of a lot of women, and some men also. It was a combination of a lot of years of women trying to be really accepted in the legal profession. And it was a chance to see someone who was so really deserving get this opportunity to take that position that helped women so much. So I think that's probably the most enduring memory.

O'Connor House
So, thank you. And, and you've touched on this in so many ways. And I just want to ask if you feel there is something that you consider her most significant contribution? Maybe that's where ...there's so many.

Ruth McGregor
Well, there's one thing I haven't said that. Yeah. I think one of the things that made her so successful in her job was the fact that she is a complete person. There are many really good women lawyers who would not have been nearly as successful in establishing a woman's place on the United States Supreme Court as Sandra Day O'Connor. She had her, her family values. She was loyal to her friends. She was able to grasp the essence and the central point of the cases that were before her. She was able to work with all the people on the Court and then expand that to an international reach, of being able to work with people and show them respect, and understand their issues and try to help them find ways to go around it. So, she was able to go out and play golf and tennis with people and enjoyed going to the theater. She was a complete person. And I think that there weren't very many women than or now who could have been as successful in filling all of those different expectations that lawyers and the public have of women. She's really unique. She was uniquely positioned to do that.

O'Connor House
Wonderful. Did you have occasion to observe her with President Reagan?

Ruth McGregor
No.

O'Connor House
No. Okay.

Ruth McGregor
They didn't invite me to...(laughs)

O'Connor House
She's often talked about not being able to get a job after Stanford when she graduated with such a distinguished academic record. Any comment on her, the irony of not being hired and having to work as a legal secretary, to the highest court in the land? Any observations or what, how do you think she singularly became that Justice?

Ruth McGregor
Yeah, I'm not sure how you ever decide how one person, in particular, became the first woman justice. But there is a lot of irony involved in it. I mean, one of the firms that she applied to where she couldn't get an interview because her name was Sandra, and not, whatever, Shandor, was the firm that William French Smith--who was the Attorney General at the time, who came out and met with her and was with her when she saw Reagan and so forth--he was a senior, he was, that was the law firm that he was associated with. And so, then, later, she is the one being courted by him to take this position. I think she wrote somewhere that she called and she said to him, "I assume you don't want, I assume this is for a secretarial position," something of the sort.

But if you look back over her history, one of the things that you see, and then I think all of us can learn from, is she took advantage of opportunities. Sometimes she had to make them. I was talking with her not long ago and I said, "You know, you were really ahead of your, your time in a lot of ways," but one of the ways was how she figured out a way to use her law degree when other women wouldn't. I mean, her first job out of law school she took, she started as an unpaid deputy county attorney, and eventually a spot opened and she could be paid. But when she came back to Phoenix, there were no jobs to be had. So what did she do? She didn't just fret about it. She opened a little private storefront law practice and took whatever came their way.

When the kids were young, she wanted part-time work. I mean, this is still going on. And she found a way to write memos for the bankruptcy court. Then later, she really wanted part-time work because the boys, all three boys were young, and she knew the Attorney General's Office wouldn't hire her as a part, as a part-time lawyer. So she went to work full-time for a year and then, having shown them how valuable she was, then she asked for part-time, and they allowed her to do that. She was way ahead of her time on this. So she made opportunities. She took advantage of opportunities.

I mean, when she was asked to go on the, the Anglo-American exchange with Chief Justice Burger, she went, and that started a friendship with him. It was partly this interest in people and knowing what was happening. It was being reliable and nice, doing what she said she would do. But even from, I mean, an intermediate state court in Arizona is not the usual hunting place for a United States Supreme Court Justice. But she had done so many things, and shown her abilities in so many ways. Often, where she almost always, where she was the first woman involved in something, that each step helped prepare her for that. I'm absolutely positive it wasn't her goal when she started practicing law or when she became a judge in Arizona, to end up on the United States Supreme Court. But in the end, she was the best possible choice because of all the decisions she made and all the experiences she had gotten along the way.

O'Connor House
Well, unless there's anything else--

Ruth McGregor
No, I think we've talked enough! (laughs)