Early in her career, retired U.S. Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O'Connor and her husband, John, made an impromptu trip to Washington, D.C. On a cold, blustery Saturday afternoon, they climbed the steps to the nation's highest court and took pictures of one another among the columns that surround the building.

"I remember that we said to each other, 'Well, that's the closest we'll ever get to the Supreme Court of the United States,"' O'Connor said Monday morning during her keynote address at U.S. Sen. Orrin Hatch's annual Utah Women's Conference.

Of course, that would turn out to be incorrect. In September 1981, O'Connor, a Stanford law school graduate, former Arizona state Senate majority leader and state judge, became the first female Supreme Court justice.

It wasn't a position the now 76-year-old woman initially wanted, O'Connor recalled Monday.

"I was really worried," she said. "Because it's wonderful to be the first for something, but if you do, you don't want to be the last."

O'Connor's Supreme Court nomination and confirmation came after a hard-fought entry into the legal world. Upon her graduation from Stanford in 1952, O'Connor discovered law firms at that time did not hire women. In fact, during one of the only face-to-face interviews she was able to arrange, O'Connor remembers being told: "We have never hired a woman lawyer here and I don't see the day when we will."

Eventually, social attitudes toward women in the work force changed, as did laws governing discrimination in the work force. O'Connor was a direct beneficiary of those changes, she told the some 1,800 attendees gathered at the Salt Palace Convention Center on Monday.

O'Connor praised Hatch's commitment to the annual conference, now in its 22nd year, for hosting workshops on a "terrific array of topics that we care about: our children, our health, our business opportunities."

The afternoon's keynote speaker, singer Michael Bolton, agreed that times have changed regarding women's issues. An outspoken advocate for women and children, Bolton in 1993 launched Michael Bolton Charities Inc., which has since awarded $4.6 million in grant money to organizations that provide service for women and children at risk for domestic violence, as well as underprivileged youth.

There was a time, he recalled, when police called to domestic disputes would simply instruct the man to take a walk to cool off.

"That time is over," Bolton said. "The law of the land has changed and it's clear. Any act of abuse against a woman ... is against the law. It is not welcome in our America."

Bolton also praised Hatch's work on the passage, and recent renewal, of the Violence Against Women Act, calling the Utah senator a "source of great strength" on women's issues. Bolton then closed the half-day conference with three songs from his latest album, a cover of Frank Sinatra songs, delighting the nearly all-female crowd.

Hatch is running for re-election against Pete Ashdown, the founder and owner of XMission, Utah's first and largest home-grown Internet access firm.

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E-mail: awelling@desnews.com