O’Connor’s Best Lessons—Fun, Resolve, Love—Weren’t Taught at Work

Next week, the late Justice Sandra Day O’Connor will lie in repose at the Great Hall of the US Supreme Court and be memorialized at a service at the National Cathedral. Justice O’Connor will be remembered as the first woman to serve on the high court, but she was much more than that.

A trailblazing jurist, lawyer, former state legislator, and a true American patriot, she had a fierce sense of purpose and presence, and a zest for life that indelibly moved and inspired all whom she met.

As a law clerk to Justice O’Connor in the late 1980s, I was privileged to have a ringside seat to some of the most fascinating and consequential legal debates of those times, many that continue to this day. But as important as those debates over legal theory and judicial philosophy were and are, my year working with Justice O’Connor was much more than a crash course in applied jurisprudence and the inner workings of our highest court. I also learned several important life lessons that have served me well to this day.

Ivan Fong and Sandra Day O’Connor, 1990

First was the importance of taking time to smell the roses. O’Connor had a tradition of taking her law clerks on an outing every month. She took us to the National Gallery of Art and other museums. We went to the movies with her. And we picnicked under the cherry blossoms.

A most memorable outing was a camping and hiking trip in the Shenandoah mountains. Then she made lunch for us on the Saturdays before oral arguments so we could discuss the cases—after filling ourselves with her trademark southwestern fare. Work was important to O’Connor, but so was art, natural beauty, and hospitality.

In the years after my clerkship, O’Connor also made a point of paying special attention to the children of her law clerks—her “grandclerks.” She gave a personal tour of the majestic courtroom to our daughter’s Girl Scout troop, including the place where the justices put on their robes and shake hands before emerging from behind red velvet curtains to the bench. She let the girls sit in the justices’ large leather chairs, creating the memory of a lifetime.

When I think back on my clerkship, I remember less the long days and nights of work, though there were many. It’s the memories of those special outings and her personal affection for my family that have stayed with me. That lesson—of taking time from work to have fun, create memories, embrace our families, and inspire the younger people around us—might seem quaint and overly simple these days, yet it has special resonance in our attention-starved lives today.

O’Connor’s second major lesson was to live life forward, not backward. On the day I first met her, during my interview, I noticed a small, embroidered pillow on the sofa next to her that read, “Sometimes in error, never in doubt.” I came to learn that her approach to being a judge and to life itself was to decide the issue presented, and then move on to the next decision.

She rarely appeared to ruminate over a decision or second-guess herself, and if she did, she didn’t show any uncertainty. As one whose younger tendency was to over-think, I learned from the justice the value of having confidence in one’s judgments, not living your life replaying what could have been, and of keeping an optimism borne of the fact that tomorrow is another day.

Third was the importance of marrying right. One of my strongest memories of O’Connor is how her eyes sparkled when she was with or talked about her husband, John Jay O’Connor.

As a law clerk, we watched her put in long hours working, and she approached her social life with equal alacrity. Notwithstanding the fact that she was undergoing treatment for breast cancer that year, she and John maintained an active social calendar. She even shared stories during that time of dancing with John and hob-nobbing with Cabinet secretaries before getting down to business with us the following day. It was clear to anyone who saw the two of them together that he brought out her more relaxed, fun-loving side.

Ivan Fong and Sandra Day O’Connor, 2013

Her devotion to her husband led her to resign from the Supreme Court in 2006, after 24 years of service, soon after John was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s disease. The time she spent with him in those years, raising awareness about the degenerative disease and the support needed to care for those with it, was another testament to her philosophy of dealing with life’s challenges head-on. Those lessons—of confronting reality and responding to hardship with mutual care and sacrifice—transcend any legal theories I learned during my clerkship year.

O’Connor spent her life dedicated to finding practical solutions to the problems of our day. She looked for common ground and tried to bring people of differing views together. She wasn’t always successful, of course, and viewed herself not as a swing vote, but as someone who preferred narrower, incremental rulings—to assess how legal doctrines might develop over time and see their impact on the other parts of our government and on everyday people.

Ultimately, that humility was the reason civility and civic education were also important to her. Her support and advocacy of programs such as iCivics, which pioneered gamification of civics education to make it more attractive to elementary and middle school students, was one of her proudest achievements, and a tribute to her vision of an America bound together by a belief in common values.

Justice O’Connor helped me be a better person. For her, life, love, and work are enduring values. Her can-do spirit, her ability to be tough when necessary, her resourcefulness, and her legacy of public service defined her. Those lessons—imparted less by her words than by her example—are worth remembering as we reflect on the lasting impact she had on our nation and the world.

This article does not necessarily reflect the opinion of Bloomberg Industry Group, Inc., the publisher of Bloomberg Law and Bloomberg Tax, or its owners.

Author Information

Ivan Fong was a law clerk to Justice Sandra Day O’Connor in 1989-90 and is currently executive vice president, general counsel, and secretary of Medtronic.

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