TEN WOMEN IN U.S. LEGAL HISTORY #9: Sandra Day O’Connor (March 26, 1930 - ) was the first female justice on the U.S. Supreme Court. Born in 1930 in El Paso, Texas, Sandra grew up on a cattle ranch. She received her B.A. in Economics from Stanford, and continued at Stanford Law School earning her law degree in 1952. After graduating law school, at least 40 firms refused to interview her for a position as an attorney because she was female. She eventually found work as a deputy county attorney in San Mateo, California, after offering to work for no salary and without an office. O’Connor served as Assistant Attorney General of Arizona from 1956 to 1969, and was then appointed to fill a vacancy in the Arizona State Senate. By 1979, she was serving on the Arizona State Court of Appeals. President Ronald Reagan nominated O’Connor as an Associate Justice of the Supreme Court and she was confirmed by the U.S. Senate by a vote of 99-0 on September 21, 1981. In her first year on the Court, she received over 60,000 letters from the public, more than any other justice in history. O’Connor served until her retirement in 2006, “was a moderating voice on the court and was very hesitant to expand the law in either direction. Justice O’Connor seemed to look at each case with an open mind.” (Steven Green, General Counsel for Americans United for Separation of Church and State)