(4 of 11)
In Arizona, lawyers described her as a painstakingly careful attorney and a judge who ran her courtroom with taut discipline and a clear disdain for lawyers who had not done their homework. "She handled her work with a certain meticulousness, an eye for legal detail," recalled Phoenix Lawyer John Frank. Added John McGowan, another Phoenix attorney: "She's a very conscientious, very careful lawyer." Some defense lawyers, however, found O'Connor's strict demeanor on the bench so intimidating that they dubbed her "the bitch queen."
Those who have read her 125 decisions on the Arizona appeals court, which deal with such routine legal issues as workmen's compensation, divorce settlements and tort actions, see her in the mold of judges who exercise "judicial restraint." "She tends to be a literalist with acute respect for statutes," said Frank O'Connor's colleagues consider her decisions crisp and well written. "Mercifully brief and cogent," said McGowan. "Clear, lucid and orderly," said Frank. But one Supreme Court clerk finds her writing "perfectly ordinary—no different from any other 2,000 judges around the country."
How did Reagan happen to pluck O'Connor out of the relative obscurity of a state court? For one thing, he had plenty of time to order a thorough search for prospects. Reagan learned of Stewart's intention to resign on April 21, as he recuperated from the assassination attempt. When Attorney General William French Smith and Presidential Counsellor Edwin Meese gave Reagan the news, he promptly reminded them of his promise to appoint a woman.
O'Connor's name had initially surfaced early at Justice as a possible choice to head the department's civil division. The old-boy network of Stanford had brought her to Smith's attention. Among those who recommended O'Connor, as the search for a new Justice intensified: Stanford Law Dean Charles Myers, former Stanford Professor William Baxter, who now heads the Justice Department's antitrust division, and one of Stanford Law's most eminent alumni, Justice William Rehnquist. He is clearly the court's most consistent and activist conservative, so his advice that O'Connor was the best woman for the court carried clout. When Goldwater weighed in, too, O'Connor's cause flourished.
At a White House meeting on June 23, Smith handed the President a list of roughly 25 candidates; about half of them were women. Some White House aides, in the words of a female Reagan admirer, "have a big problem in coping with professional women," and were neither enthusiastic nor optimistic about finding a qualified woman judge. The President, however, again conveyed his "clear preference" for a woman. By then, speculation about his possible choice of a woman was spreading. The nomination of a doctrinaire male conservative, which might have been his inclination, would have brought sharp criticism. Beyond that, passing over a qualified female candidate now would put even more pressure on Reagan to find one for the next vacancy—and he would get much less credit by doing it later rather than earlier.