Response.

• Author: O'Connor, Sandra Day
• Position: Looking Backward, Looking Forward: The Legacy of Chief Justice Rehnquist and Justice O'Connor

It is not fair to have to follow a speaker as eloquent as Justice Kennedy. And I am not going to try to bend your ears for long. I am very touched by his comments. It was wonderful that you had a chance to hear him talk about our former colleague, William Rehnquist, as well as some remarks about me.

Our Stanford alums have lost two members of the Court who belong to Stanford and who belong to the West. We used to take a lot of pride in how we just needed one more to have a majority on the Court from Stanford. Now I guess the chances of a Court majority from Stanford are not so good.

When I started at Stanford Law School back in the Dark Ages, the Law School was in the inner quad. And it was a funny little part of the inner quad--the law library was quite old and musty and we had an owl that lived in the stacks. I used to do homework in that library, and I'd always watch and see where the owl was sitting that day.

Bill Rehnquist was my classmate, and I often sat next to him. I would look over and see what kind of notes he took. I took copious notes. I tried to write down everything the professors had to say. But he ended up each hour with a perfect outline, and he just captured exactly the essence of what was presented. He did a great job. He could have made a fortune on those notes had he chosen to do so.

The Law School then moved into nicer quarters. It was on the outer quad, over near the Business School facing Palm Drive. We thought we were in high cotton when we got there. And I met my husband thanks to the Stanford Law Review. In those days I think people were asked to join the Law Review based in their first year's grades. I doubt that is still the practice, but it may play a part in it--I don't know. Anyway, both Bill Rehnquist and I were invited to join the Law Review after our first year. And my husband John was in the next year's class, and he was invited to join the Law Review after his first year.

My husband and I were assigned to cite-check some Law Review article together, and we did that up in the law library. After a couple of hours John said maybe we'd better finish the job down the highway at Dinah's Shack, which was a local pub on El Camino. So we did, and by about forty days later we were engaged to be married. So Stanford Law Review played a very important role in my life, and I hope in yours too.

Now the Court has lost most of its western members, as Justice Kennedy pointed out. That is a pretty big loss. I remember...