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Justice O'Connor starts the listener off with some history of the Constitution and Bill of Rights. Our Constitution is a direct descendant of Magna Carta, as is our Bill of Rights. There is sufficient detail that I learned some things, and I'd just come off reading the biography of John Adams, by Mr. McCullough, which also touches on the creation of these documents. Justice O'Connor then gives an explanation/overview of how the Supreme Court works, how cases are selected, what the process is like. She doesn't go so far as to give us "A day in the life", but we have a fairly good idea of what her job entails. There are numerous anecdotes, all of them relevant and interesting. There is a lengthy discussion of Habeas Corpus - where it came from, how it has been used in the past, how it is being used today. She goes into great detail when she talks about President Lincoln and his suspension of that right during the Civil War. Again, this is history that I was aware of, but now know more than I did before. Justice O'Connor shares some of her personal and professional life when she talks about some specific Supreme Court Justices: Oliver Wendall Holmes, Thurgood Marshall, and Louis Powell. She shares memories, stories, and the connections between each Judge's background, what they brought to the Court, and the decisions that they influenced. As one might expect, there is a section on "Women in Society". She talks about women's history in light of the Constitution, about the Suffrage movement in America and how it differed from the movement in England, about how she has benefited from the women's movement. She talks about women as judges, and how they are both similar to and different than men as judges. She talks about woman and power, women in power, and what that entails. This was, for me, probably the most interesting portion of the book. Justice O'Connor then talks about some of the problems in our judicial system, and possible remedies for those problems. She begins with the jury system, starting with the history and moving on to what is currently wrong/right with the system, and then suggests some possible solutions or alternatives. This segues into a discussion about the professionalism (or lack of it) in attorneys today. There is discussion of the symptoms within the profession (alcoholism, general dissatisfaction, incivility, etc.), how that affects the system as a whole, and what needs to be done to change things. This moves into a discussion of the changing nature of the judiciary; the effects of technology, of the globalization of economy, of the porous nature of boundaries on the law; the benefits that multi-culturalism can bring to our system of law. She believes that lawyers need to broaden their horizons, look outside our borders to see what other countries are doing. This will not only benefit our system but make it easier to settle international disputes. Justice O'Connor talks about the role of our legal system and the Constitution in the future. Again, this requires some hisorty of where we've been in order to see where we might be going, where we ought to be going. One of the ways Justice O'Connor does this is by comparing our court system to that of Mexico, seeing what is the same, what is almost the same, and what is very different. She talks also about how the roles of judicial review, federalism, and the rights of the majority must balance each other out in order to retain the best of our legal system; that letting any one sector have all the power takes all the power from all of us. The epilogue is a pondering of what her grandchild Courtney will come to know as she grows up, what she will take for granted which we are still getting used to. Justice O'Connor wonders what changes will take place in Courtney's life, and will they be as monumental as the ones Justice O'Connor has lived through, and of which she has been a part. This was a very interesting book. I feel I have enough of a grasp of the content that I will not go out and read the book in hard copy. I didn't learn any new words, but I was reminded by the reader that my vocabulary does contain words which I don't use on a daily basis, words which I haven't heard in a while. It was, for me, a pleasant stretching of my mental capacity. I also found myself going off on mental tangents, triggered by something Justice O'Connor had said. This required back-tracking when I realized that I had missed something. While Justice O'Connor has a pleasant speaking voice which does not grate on one's ear, I found it difficult to listen to this for extended periods of time. Justice O'Connor's patterns of speech are very repetitive in the long run. Given the nature of the material, it is unrealistic to look for the vocal ranges possible in reading a novel, where characters might be expected to speak "in character". I would recommend this to anyone interested in the Supreme Court, law in general, and/or the role of women in today's society. I would not recomment it as one's only listening material on a long road trip, particularly if one's route is monotonous or lacking in scenery.
Reviewed by P.J. Coldren, June 2003
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