Louis D. Brandeis (1856–1941) Supreme Court justice and social reformer

Born in Louisville, Kentucky, Brandeis’s family moved to Germany in 1872, when his father sold the family business in Kentucky, anticipating the RECESSION, or panic, that would follow in 1873. Louis attended school in Germany and entered Harvard Law School when his family returned to the United States. After graduating, he initially practiced law in St. Louis but quickly returned to Boston, where he established a practice with a law school classmate, Samuel Warren. The new firm became known as Warren & Brandeis. He continued to practice law in Boston until 1916.

Adopting social and economic reform causes early in his career, he became known as “the people’s lawyer.” Often working pro bono, he developed strong sympathies for the trade union movement and the women’s rights movement. Between 1900 and 1907, he defended the public interest against the Boston utilities and also argued successfully before the U.S. Supreme Court that labor laws applied to women as well as men. During the argument, he made use of statistics and economic information, and this sort of presentation became known as the “Brandeis brief.”

Brandeis was also an ardent opponent of monopoly concentrations and the abuses of the concentration of capital by New York bankers, often referred to as the “money trust.” Many of his principles can be found in his 1914 book, Other People’s Money, in which he described how bankers used deposits for their own political ends. It was written after congressional hearings into the money trust. He also wrote Business, A Profession (1914), about the success of Filene’s Department Store in Boston.

Before World War I, Brandeis’s political leanings were seized upon by his opponents in order to portray him as an enemy of big business. He opposed bankers’ control of the New England railroads. He began a long legal battle against J. P. Morgan’s control of the New Haven Railroad that lasted from 1905 to 1913. In the end, Morgan was forced to divest control of most of the bank’s holdings. He also became arbitrator in a strike by New York garment workers. After seeing the plight of the workers, many of whom were Jewish, he became active in Zionist causes and remained so for the rest of his life. He was the author of Woodrow Wilson’s economic platform in the 1912 presidential elections and often tutored Wilson on economic matters. As a result, Wilson named him to the Supreme Court in 1916. He was confirmed as the first Jewish justice despite some anti-Semitism surrounding his confirmation.

During Franklin D. Roosevelt’s presidency, Brandeis often consulted with members of the administration at a distance. He upheld many of the legal challenges to the NEW DEAL brought before the Court but did argue that the NATIONAL RECOVERY ADMINISTRATION was unconstitutional. He retired from the Court in 1939 and died two years later. While best remembered as a justice, Brandeis was the embodiment of a crusading lawyer imbued with progressive ideas who often, and successfully, challenged big business during the era dominated by the trusts.

See also ANTITRUST; MORGAN, JOHN PIERPONT.

Further reading

Gal, Allon. Brandeis of Boston. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1980.
Mason, A. T. Brandeis: A Free Man’s Life. New York: Viking, 1946.
Strumm, Philippa. Louis D. Brandeis: Justice for the People. New York: Schocken Books, 1984.
Urofsky, Melvin I. A Mind of One Piece: Brandeis & American Reform. New York: Scribner’s, 1971.