U. S. Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg and LBJ Foundation President and CEO Mark K. Updegrove discuss the justice's trailblazing career at the Library of Congress in Washington, D.C., on Jan. 30, 2020. (Photo: LBJ Foundation/Jay Godwin)

Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg on Thursday said work-life balance remains elusive in achieving gender equality, and she blamed "firms" that "have not yet been sufficiently accommodating."

Ginsburg, after describing the dearth of assistance for female lawyers with children when she graduated from law school, told the audience, "I thought in the electronic age it would be easier to overcome because if you're a lawyer, for example, you have the entire law library at your fingertips wherever you are. But firms have not yet been sufficiently accommodating."

The justice's comments, made in an interview after a ceremony in which she received the LBJ Liberty & Justice for All Award, came against a backdrop of a recent spate of lawsuits against major law firms alleging gender discrimination. They also followed just hours after three states went to federal court to enforce ratification of the Equal Rights Amendment.

"We have come a very long way," Ginsburg said in an interview with Mark Updegrove, president and CEO of the LBJ Foundation. "In the beginning of the '70s, the statutes, the U.S. Code, were riddled with gender-based differentials. My job was to get to court to show that all these differentials did not operate benignly in women's favor and that was the mission—to get rid of all the explicit gender-based discrimination written into the law. That job was done in the space of 10 years."

The two major obstacles remaining, she said, are "unconscious bias" and work-life balance.

The LBJ Liberty & Justice for All Award, according to the foundation, honors those who carry on President Lyndon B. Johnson's legacy, regardless of party affiliation, personifying the mission he defined as the country's most basic: "to right wrong, to do justice, to serve man."

During the evening event, Ginsburg was feted with a performance by singer-songwriter James Taylor, readings from her opinions by television and film stars Holland Taylor, Constance Wu and Sunny Hostin, and a speech by former LBJ speechwriter-journalist Bill Moyers.

When asked what one case she would like history to associate with her, Ginsburg noted two dissenting opinions, one in the voting rights case, Shelby County, Ala. v. Holder and the fair pay act case, Lilly Ledbetter v. Goodyear. For her majority opinions, she pointed to the gender discrimination case involving the Virginia Military Institute: Virginia v. United States.

On what accomplishment has given her the greatest pride, Ginsburg said she was "lucky enough" to be part of the revived feminist movement. In the '70s, she noted there was a sea change in the way people were living.

"If you wanted to give your children opportunities, you needed a second income," said the justice. "I saw the law catching up to a larger change already occurring in society. I consider myself tremendously fortunate to have been alive and a lawyer when society finally was ready to recognize women as equal in stature to men."

When asked what her greatest fear for the country was, Ginsburg replied the "high degree of polarization" in the nation. "That is the fear that this polarization will continue, and my greatest hope is that it will end."