U.S. Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg's death last Friday due to metastatic pancreatic cancer at the age of 87 ended her astonishing 60-year legal career. Today she lies in state at the Supreme Court surrounded by over 100 of her law clerks then on Friday at the U.S. Capitol, the first woman to receive this honor.

Though her reputation enjoyed a pop culture bump over the last decade, the spotlight on her work at the American Civil Liberties Union and her subsequent general counsel leadership paved the road to the highest court in the land.

Ginsburg became ACLU GC in 1973 after co-founding the Women's Rights Project the prior year. The cases that led her to the top lawyer milestone stand out more in her biography than her actual GC tenure at the storied legal services nonprofit.