Sandra Day O'Connor was nominated by President Ronald Reagan as associate justice of the United States Supreme Court in 1981 and retired in 2006. She was a member of the Iraq Study Group in Washington, DC and served on the Arizona Court of Appeals from 1979 to 1981. She was formerly an elected judge of the Maricopa County Superior Court, Phoenix, Arizona. Justice O'Connor served as chairman of the State, County, and Municipal Affairs Committee, on the Legislative Council, on the Probate Code Commission and on the Arizona Advisory Council on Intergovernmental Relations. She was the Senate Majority leader and state senator for the Arizona State Senate. She was a deputy county attorney for San Mateo County, California, a civilian attorney for Quartermaster Market Center, Frankfurt, Germany, and an assistant attorney general in Arizona. She is the founder of the Sandra Day O'Connor Institute, which provides non-partisan information for policy making and civic education, with a special focus on engaging young people with civic programs. Justice O'Connor earned a B.A. in economics from Stanford University and an LL.B. from Stanford Law School.