Louis Dembitz Brandeis

Louis Dembitz Brandeis in the United States

Louis Dembitz Brandeis (1856-1941), American lawyer and jurist, was born in Louisville, Ky., Nov. 13 1856. He was educated in the public schools of his native city and at the Annen Realschule, Dresden, Germany. He graduated from the Harvard Law School in 1877, was admitted to the bar in 1878, and practised in Boston from 1879 to 1916. As a member of the Public Franchise League he took an active part in preserving municipal control of the Boston subway. He was instrumental in securing the passage of the Boston Sliding Scale Gas Act and was a pioneer in the movement for establishing life insurance through savings banks. He opposed the monopoly of transportation by the New Haven railway in New England. He was much interested in labour legislation, acting as counsel for the people in cases involving the constitutionality of fixing hours of labour and a minimum wage in several states. In 1915 he acted successfully as counsel for the Government in the suit brought by the Riggs National Bank in which the bank charged the Secretary of the Treasury and the Comptroller of the Currency with conspiring to wreck it. In Jan. 1916 he was appointed by President Wilson to succeed the late Justice Lamar as associate justice of the United States Supreme Court, being the first Jew to attain this position. He was the author of Other People’s Money and Business as a Profession, besides numerous articles on public franchise, business efficiency, labour and trusts. He was prominent in Zionism and in 1914 was made chairman of the provisional committee for Zionist affairs.

Main Source: Encyclopædia Britannica (1922)

Alternative Biography

BRANDEIS, Louis Dembitz, American jurist: b. Louisville, Ky., 13 Nov. 1856. He was educated in the Louisville public and high schools, at the Annen Realschule, Dresden, 1873-75, and at Harvard University, where he received the degree of LL.B. in 1877. He was admitted to the bar the following year. From 1879 to 1916 he practised in Boston, being a member of the firm of Warren & Brandeis until 1897, and of Brandeis, Dunbar & Nutter, 1897-1916. In 1910 he was counsel for Luther B. Glavis in the Ballinger-Pinchot investigation; in 1911 counsel for shippers in the advanced freight rate investigation before the Interstate Commerce Commission; in 1913-14 special counsel for the Interstate Commerce Commission in the second advanced freight rate case; in 1915 he was special counsel for the government in the Riggs National Bank case. In 1914 he was counsel for the people in the proceedings involving the constitutionality of the women’s ten-hour laws in Oregon and Illinois, the California eight-hour law and the minimum wage law in Oregon. He was also counsel for the people in the preservation of the Boston municipal subways system and the establishment of the Boston sliding scale gas system and the Massachusetts savings bank insurance. In the years between 1906 and 1913 he was people’s counsel in opposing the New Haven monopoly of transportation in New England. He was also chairman of the arbitration board in the New York garment workers’ strike in 1910. In 1914-15 he was chairman of the provisional committee for general Zionist affairs. In 1916 he was nominated by President Wilson justice of the Supreme Court of the United States, and despite considerable opposition the nomination was confirmed by the Senate. He is the first man of his race and creed in the Supreme Court of the United States. His writings include articles on public franchises in Massachusetts, life insurance, wage-earners’ life insurance, scientific management of labor problems and the trusts and Zionist and Jewish problems.

Brandeis, Louis Dembitz Born November 13, 1856, in Louisville, KY
Died October 5, 1941, in Washington, DC

Federal Judicial Service:
Associate Justice, Supreme Court of the United States
Nominated by Woodrow Wilson on January 28, 1916, to a seat vacated by Joseph Rucker Lamar. Confirmed by the Senate on June 1, 1916, and received commission on June 1, 1916. Assumed senior status on February 13, 1939. Service terminated on October 5, 1941, due to death.

Allotment as Circuit Justice:
Second Circuit, June 12, 1916-March 15, 1925
Third Circuit, March 16, 1925-June 1, 1930
Fifth Circuit, June 2, 1930-March 27, 1932
First Circuit, March 28, 1932-February 13, 1939

Education:
Harvard Law School, LL.B., 1877

Professional Career:
Private practice, St. Louis, Missouri, 1878-1879
Private practice, Boston, Massachusetts, 1879-1916
Law clerk, Hon. Horace Gray, Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts, 1879-1880
Instructor, Harvard Law School, 1882-1883

Selected opinions

  • Ashwander v. Tennessee Valley Authority (1936) (concurring)
  • Erie Railroad Co. v. Tompkins (1938) (majority)
  • Gilbert v. Minnesota (1920) (dissenting)
  • New State Ice Co. v. Liebmann (1932) (dissenting)
  • Olmstead v. United States (1928) (dissenting)
  • Ruthenberg v. Michigan (1927) (unpublished dissent)
  • Sugarman v. United States (1919) (majority)
  • United States ex rel Milwaukee Social Democratic Publishing Co. v. Burleson (1921) (dissenting)
  • Whitney v. California (1927) (concurring)
  • The Collected Supreme Court Opinions of Louis D. Brandeis
  • Pennsylvania Coal Co. v. Mahon (1922) (dissenting)
  • Loughran v. Loughran (1934) (majority)

See Also

  • List of Justices of the Supreme Court of the United States
  • List of law clerks of the Supreme Court of the United States
  • List of U.S. Supreme Court Justices by time in office
  • United States Supreme Court cases during the Hughes Court
  • United States Supreme Court cases during the Taft Court
  • United States Supreme Court cases during the White Court

Selected works by Brandeis

  • The Brandeis Guide to the Modern World, Alfred Lief, editor (Boston: Little, Brown & Co., 1941)
  • Business, a Profession, Ernest Poole, editor (Boston, MA: Small, Maynard, 1914)
  • The Words of Justice Brandeis, Solomon Goldman, editor (New York, N.Y.: Henry Schuman, 1953)
  • Other People’s Money and How the Bankers Use It (New York, NY: Stokes, 1914)
  • Melvin I. Urofsky & David W. Levy, editors, Half Brother, Half Son: The Letters of Louis D. Brandeis to Felix Frankfurter (University of Oklahoma Press, 1991)
  • Melvin I. Urofsky, editor, Letters of Louis D. Brandeis (State University of New York Press, 1980)
  • Louis Brandeis & Samuel Warren “The Right to Privacy,” 4 Harvard Law Review 193-220 (1890–91)

Further Reading

  • Jack Grennan, Brandeis & Frankfurter: A Dual Biography (N.Y.: Harper & Row, 1984)
  • Gerald Berk, Louis Brandeis and the Making of Regulated Competition, 1900-1932 (Cambridge University Press, 2009)
  • Alexander M. Bickel, The Unpublished Opinions of Mr. Justice Brandeis (Harvard University Press, 1957)
  • Nelson L. Dawson, editor, Brandeis and America (Lexington, KY: University Press of Kentucky, 1989)
  • Jacob DeHaas, Louis D. Brandeis, A Biographical Sketch (Blach, 1929)
  • Felix Frankfurter, editor, Mr. Justice Brandeis (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1932)
  • Ben Halpern, A Clash of Heroes: Brandeis, Weizman, and American Zionism (New York, N. Y.: Oxford University Press, 1986)
  • Samuel J. Konefsky, The Legacy of Holmes & Brandeis: A Study in the Influence of Ideas (N.Y.: Macmillan 1956)
  • Alfred Lief, editor, The Social & Economic Views of Mr. Justice Brandeis (New York, N.Y.: The Vanguard Press, 1930)
  • Jacob Rader Marcus, Louis Brandeis (Twayne Publishing, 1997)
  • Alpheus Thomas Mason, Brandeis: A Free Man’s Life (N.Y.: The Viking Press, 1946)
  • Alpheus Thomas Mason, Brandeis & The Modern State (Princeton University Press, 1933)
  • Thomas McCraw, Prophets of Regulation: Charles Francis Adams, Louis D. Brandeis, James M. Landis, Alfred E. Kahn (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1984)
  • Ray M. Mersky, Louis Dembitz Brandeis 1856-1941: Bibliography (Fred B Rothman & Co; reprint ed., 1958)
  • Bruce Allen Murphy, The Brandeis/Frankfurter Connection: The Secret Activities of Two Supreme Court Justices (N.Y.: Oxford University Press, 1982)
  • Lewis J. Paper, Brandeis: An Intimate Biography of one of America’s Truly Great Supreme Court Justices (Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice-Hall, 1983)
  • Catherine Owens Peare, The Louis D. Brandeis Story (Ty Crowell Co., 1970)
  • Edward A. Purcell, Jr., Brandeis and the Progressive Constitution: Erie, the Judicial Power, and the Politics of the Federal Courts in Twentieth-Century America (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2000)
  • Philippa Strum, Brandeis: Beyond Progressivism (Lawrence, KS: University Press of Kansas, 1993)
  • Philippa Strum, editor, Brandeis on Democracy (Lawrence, KS: University Press of Kansas, 1995)
  • Philippa Strum, Louis D. Brandeis: Justice for the People (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1988)
  • A.L. Todd, Justice on Trial: The Case of Louis D. Brandeis (New York, N.Y: McGraw-Hill, 1964)
  • Melvin I. Urofsky, A Mind of One Piece: Brandeis and American Reform (New York, N.Y., Scribner, 1971)
  • Melvin I. Urofsky, Louis D. Brandeis & the Progressive Tradition (Boston, MA: Little, Brown & Co., 1981)

Posted

in

, ,

by

Comments

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *