U.S. Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg speaks at the Association of American Law Schools annual meeting Jan. 4.

If there were any doubt remaining about U.S. Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg's status as a judicial rock star and cultural icon, it was laid to rest at 6:30 p.m. Jan. 4 as she took the stage at a Washington hotel to speak before 1,200 adoring law professors.

The standing ovation that greeted the justice—who arrived 30 minutes late, in true rock star fashion—was sustained as many in the typically buttoned-up Association of American Law Schools crowd strained to snap a picture of Ginsburg on their phones. Many of those in attendance had lined up more than an hour in advance to snag a prime seat for the hour-long discussion with outgoing association president and Harvard University law professor Vicki Jackson, and the line to get in the ballroom eventually snaked around the lobby of the cavernous Marriott Wardman Park hotel, where the three-day academic conference was held.

The reception was amplified from Ginsburg's last visit to the AALS annual conference, in 2015, when she spoke with Georgetown University law professor Wendy Williams. The justice drew a crowd plenty of adulation five years ago, but the energy surrounding the panel was almost tepid compared with the electric response she received this week.

Ginsburg's position in popular culture has skyrocketed in recent years—she was the subject of a well-received documentary in 2018 as well as a feature film released that same year, and some attendees said they believed it may be their last chance to see the 86-year-old justice in person. Additionally, Ginsburg began her legal career as a law professor, which may help explain the professoriate's affinity for her, said Lee Ann Wheelis Lockridge, interim dean at Louisiana State University Paul M. Hebert Law Center, who attended the Ginsburg event.

"That might be where some of the palpable enthusiasm came from—the sense of community people in that room had with her even though we certainly do not actually know her," Lockridge said. "Then there is likely the fact that we all realize we will not have many other opportunities like that one to hear her 'voice' in person sharing those thoughts with us in that way."

More than a few professors brought their children to hear Ginsburg, which is an unusual sight at the AALS. Among them was Sergio Pareja, dean of the University of New Mexico School of Law, whose wife and two teenage daughters accompanied him  to hear the justice,

"My daughters loved her presentation and were inspired by the work that she's done throughout her life," Pareja said. "All of their friends know who Justice Ginsburg is, especially since the movie 'On the Basis of Sex' came out. I think she is an inspiration to anybody who cares about creating a more equitable society, one in which any child can grow up to be what he or she wants to be in life."

Ginsburg did not say anything particularly controversial during her remarks. The words "impeachment" or "President Trump" never surfaced, nor did the justice reference any recent or pending cases. Jackson instead focused her questions on the challenges Ginsburg faced as a woman in a male-dominated profession early on in her career, her approach to civil rights litigation, and the state of her health.

Ginsburg, who arrived with a whimsical tote bag bearing her profile in sunglasses, assured the audience that she is "well on my way to conquering my fourth bout with cancer," and had worked out with her longtime trainer just three days earlier.

As she has on many occasions, she credited her late husband, Marty Ginsburg, with making it possible to establish her career. "It would have been impossible if I didn't have a husband who thought what I did was as important as what he did," she said.

She said that she ended up teaching at Rutgers Law School because no law firms would hire a woman in the early 1960s. But one of her biggest laugh lines of the night came from her recounting a conversation with her former U.S. Supreme Court colleague Justice Sandra Day O'Connor about the headwinds they faced early on as women in the legal profession.

"Sandra Day O'Connor said to me once, 'Where would we be if there was no discrimination?'" she recalled. "I said, 'I think we'd be retired partners from a big law firm. But since there was discrimination, we ended up here.'"

In addition to her longtime legal work on women's rights, Ginsburg spoke about her earlier efforts to bolster the AALS' nondiscrimination policy. Sexist jokes were not uncommon in legal teaching materials at the time. One popular first-year property text included a line about land holding that read, "For after all, land, life and women were meant to be possessed."

"It was up to us to say that statements like that weren't funny," she told the audience.

Though she admitted to utilizing Thurgood Marshall's litigation strategy—using cases as building blocks to bolster women's rights—she batted down the comparison of her as the "Thurgood Marshall of the Women's Movement," calling it an inept analogy.

"Thurgood Marshall would wake up in a southern town and not know if he would be alive at the end of the day," Ginsburg said. "I never faced that."