Utah Supreme Court Chief Justice Christine Durham was in her car in 1981 that Sandra Day O'Connor would become the first woman on the nation's highest court. "I was so excited I looked around for someone to honk my horn at," she says. "It was just so energizing. To have a woman appointed to the highest court of the nation just galvanized people everywhere. People just saw it as a watershed moment." As soon as she stopped the car, Durham got on the telephone and began calling friends in Arizona, where O'Connor was plucked from relative obscurity to become a role model for generations of women. Shortly after O'Connor's appointment, Durham, who became the first woman to serve on the Utah Supreme Court in 1982, sat with O'Connor at a first-ever national conference of women judges - a gathering of just 40. Asked for advice on how to deal with speaking invitations that accompanied the notoriety of being the first female in a position, O'Connor replied she had about 1,200 requests each week and had a full-time staffer devoted to tracking and responding to them. "She was asked to be a symbol of so many things," Durham says. "She said 'My first task is to learn my new job, but I also understand what my appointment means to people, especially women, and I do feel an obligation to respond to the symbolism of that.'" O'Connor had two things in her favor: a sense of humor and a supportive husband, Durham says. "She was the product of an era when women were in the profession in very limited numbers, and yet she rose to the very pinnacle of the profession, not having devalued along the way her commitment to her marriage and family." Durham says she has taken one cue from a now-famous Barbie doll that was enclosed in glass in O'Connor's chambers. The doll was circulated to each new female judge in the Maricopa County, Ariz., Superior Court, with the group saying the first to be appointed to the U.S. Supreme Court would keep the doll. O'Connor since has donated the doll to the Arizona Historical Society. In Utah, a gavel inscribed with the name of the state's first female judge - Reva Beck Besone who served in the 1930s - is passed to each new woman to take to the bench. "Our joke is that we will retire our gavel when the first Utah woman goes on the U.S. Supreme Court." - Elizabeth Neff

Judge Denise Lindberg

Former clerk appreciates 'warmth'

Third District Judge Denise Lindberg worked as one of O'Connor's four clerks in 1990-91, a job she had been offered a year earlier but was able to defer. Lindberg's husband was in law school, and O'Connor didn't want her to have to be separated from her husband, who was in his last year of law school. "That is emblematic of the attention to the personal side of people and detail that she has demonstrated," Lindberg says. "For me, the most meaningful memories are going to be personal ones: the mentoring she has done for not just me but many women . . . and for the continuing interest she has taken with her clerks." Those lucky to have clerked for her enjoyed a special relationship: outings to see the Washington, D.C., cherry blossoms in bloom or river-rafting trips when clerk terms ended. "On the Saturday before oral arguments, she would cook the clerks lunch and we would sit and discuss the cases that were going to be heard the coming week," Lindberg says. "Frankly, I can't imagine Justice Scalia or anyone else doing anything like that. It was a warmth." O'Connor gives her clerks' children T-shirts emblazoned with the U.S. Supreme Court seal and the phrase "GrandClerks." Today Lindberg emulates her role model with a pillow in her own chambers that is a copy of one in O'Connor's. It reads: "Maybe in error but never in doubt." "She knew her mind, her judicial philosophy and her views of the law, and she was always clear and decisive in making sure that her viewpoint was articulated within the court and in its opinions," Lindberg says. "That was something that I admired in her and I have tried to emulate." Lindberg says she would not be surprised if the Bush administration looked for strong women candidates to replace her. She says she has no doubt O'Connor will remain active in retirement. - Elizabeth Neff

Dani Eyer

'Most powerful justice on the court'

Dani Eyer, the executive director of the American Civil Liberties Union of Utah, says she and her fellow law students at Brigham Young University were heartened when the first female justice was appointed to the high court. And they soon got a firsthand look at Sandra Day O'Connor in action. A year later, in 1982, she showed up in Provo to judge a moot court competition, where law students argue a hypothetical case to sharpen their litigation skills. Eyer was a spectator. "That was a more terrifying experience than any of our arguments in real life," Eyer says of having to face a U.S. Supreme Court justice. In the 24 years since O'Connor's appointment, Eyer says her admiration of the justice has increased. "When she was appointed, she was not considered a leading scholar or judge," she says. "Yet, she turned out to be widely considered intelligent, wise, thoughtful and the most powerful person on the court. She exceeded everyone's expectations." A demonstration of O'Connor's thoughtful approach, Eyer says, can be seen in one of her recent rulings: a concurring opinion released Monday in a case out of Kentucky. The justice agreed with the majority that the Ten Commandments cannot be posted in courtrooms, writing "we have kept religion a matter for the individual conscience, not for the prosecutor or bureaucrat." Eyer says O'Connor's view in a 1992 Pennsylvania case, in which she acknowledged that she finds abortion offensive but realizes her duty was not to simply promote her own moral code, is more evidence of a balanced approach. That approach makes O'Connor the most powerful justice on the court, Eyer says. Twenty percent of the decisions out of the current court have been 5-4 rulings and hers was often the deciding vote, Eyer says. Lawyers began targeting their briefs at O'Connor, knowing the key to winning would be to persuade her. - Pamela Manson

Judge Paul Cassell

O'Connor was focused and meticulous

Paul Cassell, a U.S. district judge in Utah, is among the few people who has seen the Supreme Court in action both behind the scenes and in front of the bench. As a law clerk in 1985 for then-Chief Justice Warren Burger, he watched dozens of arguments before the high court. As a law professor at the University of Utah in 1999, he wrote a friend-of-the-court brief in a case arguing that police are not legally obligated to read suspects their constitutional rights. He also was one of the attorneys who argued that case before the high court. Cassell was unable to sway Sandra Day O'Connor to his side in that case. However, his admiration for the justice that stems from his clerking days remains. He says he was impressed with O'Connor's focus and knowledge of the specifics of a case. "She had a well-deserved reputation for being meticulous," Cassell says. "She was a detail person. Her law clerks said she often took the record home and pored over it." Despite her schedule, O'Connor took all the clerks out for lunch once a year. - Pamela Manson

Scott Matheson Jr.

Law dean enjoyed justice's visits

In addition to skiing, Sandra Day O'Connor enjoys speaking to law students in Utah. The students reciprocate the feeling. It's very exciting to have a Supreme Court justice speak at a law school," says Scott Matheson Jr., dean of the the S.J. Quinney College of Law at the University of Utah. "That was especially the case with Justice O'Connor." Besides being a historic figure, O'Connor wields influence as the deciding vote in many critical cases before the court, says Matheson, who hosted some of O'Connor's visits. Now the focus will be on her replacement, Matheson says. The stakes for replacing O'Connor are high because she has played such a pivotal role in the outcome of important cases. One landmark decision was 1994's Hagen v. Utah, in which O'Connor wrote the majority opinion that agreed with the state's position setting the boundaries of the Uintah-Ouray Indian Reservation. The ruling established that the reservation was smaller than what had been understood previously. - Pamela Manson

David B. Watkiss

'Practical, careful, polite collegial'

David B. Watkiss, a Salt Lake City attorney, argued before the U.S. Supreme Court on behalf of a Utah man who accused The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints of employment discrimination. Although Watkiss lost the 1987 case, he was impressed with Sandra Day O'Connor. "She was practical, careful, polite, collegial. And I think one of the important things about her is she was quite non-ideological," he says. "She approached problems without a lot of preconceived notions and struggled with them and tried to come up with a practical solution." 1 - Pamela Manson