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.

Supreme Court Oath:
June 5, 1916

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

Bibliography

Bagan, Earl Stephen. “Louis Dembitz Brandeis – Of the People, By the People, For the People.” Oklahoma City University Law Review, vol. 9, no. 3 (Fall 1984): 505-40.

Baker, Leonard. Brandeis and Frankfurter: A Dual Biography. New York: New York University Press, 1986.

Benson, Joseph Fred. “Justice Brandeis and the Saint Louis Rate Cases.” St. Louis Bar Journal, vol. 34, no. 2 (Fall 1987): 42-7.

Berk, Gerald. Louis D. Brandeis and the Making of Regulated Competition, 1900-1932. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2012.

Bernard, Burton C. “Brandeis in Saint Louis.” Saint Louis University Law Journal, vol. 11, no. 1 (Fall 1966): 9-11.

Bernstein, David E. “From Progressivism to Modern Liberalism: Louis D. Brandeis as a Transitional Figure in Constitutional Law.” Notre Dame Law Review, vol. 89, no. 5 (May 2014): 2029-50.

Bosmajian, Haig A. Anita Whitney, Louis Brandeis and the First Amendment. Madison, NJ: Farleigh Dickinson University Press, 2010.

Bracey, Christopher A. “Louis Brandeis and the Race Question.” Alabama Law Review, vol. 53, no. 3 (Spring 2001): 859-910.

Braeman, John. “The People’s Lawyer Revisited: Louis D. Brandeis versus the United Shoe Machinery Company.” American Journal of Legal History, vol. 50, no. 3 (2008-2010): 284-204.

Brickner, Paul. “Different Styles and Similar Values: The Reformer Roles of Charles Evans Hughes and Louis Dembitz Brandeis in Gas, Electric, and Insurance Regulation.” Indiana Law Review, vol. 33, no. 3 (2000).

Burt, Robert A. Two Jewish Justices: Outcasts in the Promised Land. Berkley: University of California Press, 1988.

Campbell, Peter Scott. "Louis D. Brandeis and the Death of Samuel D. Warren." Journal of Supreme Court History, vol. 46, no. 3 (Nov. 2021): 280-291.

Cochran, Robert F., Jr. “Louis D. Brandeis and the Lawyer Advocacy System.” Pepperdine Law Review, vol. 40, no. 2 (Feb. 2013): 351-64.

Dalin, David G. Jewish Justices of the Supreme Court: From Brandeis to Kagan. Waltham, Mass.: Brandeis University Press, 2017.

Dawson, Nelson Lloyd. Louis D. Brandeis, Felix Frankfurter, and the New Deal. Hamden, Conn.: Archon Books, 1980.

De Haas, Jacob. Louis D. Brandeis: A Biographical Sketch. New York: Bloch, 1929.

Dilliard, Irving. Mr. Justice Brandeis, Great American: Press Opinion and Public Appraisal. St. Louis: Modern View press, 1941.

________. “Saint Louis Recalls Brandeis.” Saint Louis University Law School, vol. 11, no. 1 (Fall 1966): 12-4.

Eiseman, Alberta and Herbert Steinberg. Rebels and Reformers: Biographies of Four Jewish Americans: Uriah Phillips Levy, Ernestine L. Rose, Louis D. Brandeis, Lillian D. Wald. Garden City, NY: Zenith Books, 1976.

Fowler, Russel. “Louis Brandeis: Pro Bono Lawyer.” Tennessee Bar Journal, vol. 53, no. 10 (Oct. 2017): 25-8.

Fraenkel, Josef. Louis D. Brandeis (1856-1941): Patriot, Judge and Zionist. London: Education Committee of the Hillel Foundation, 1959.

Frankfurter, Felix, ed. Mr. Justice Brandeis. New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 1932.

Friendly, Henry J. “Mr. Justice Brandeis: The Quest for Reason.” University of Pennsylvania Law Review, vol. 108, no. 7 (May, 1960): 985-99.

Konefsky, Samuel Joseph. “Holmes and Brandeis: Companions in Dissent.” Vanderbilt Law Review, vol. 10, no. 2 (Feb. 1957): 269-300.

________. The Legacy of Holmes and Brandeis: A Study in the Influence of Ideas. New York: Da Capo Press, 1974.

Lief, Alfred. Brandeis: The Personal History of an American Ideal. Manchester, NH: Ayer Pub. Co., 1936.

Lipez, Kermit V. “Doing Justice: The Judaism of Louis Brandeis.” Maine Bar Journal, vol. 28, no. 1 (Winter 2013): 38-43.

Mason, Alpheus Thomas. Brandeis: A Free Man’s Life. New York: Viking, 1956.

________. Brandeis and the Modern State. Washington, DC: National Home Library Foundation, 1936.

________. Brandeis, Lawyer and Judge in the Modern State. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1933.

________. “Louis Dembitz Brandeis: Tempered Boldness in a Stand-Pat Society.” University of Pittsburgh Law Review, vol. 26, no. 3 (Mar. 1967): 421-41.

McCraw, Thomas K. Prophets of Regulation: Charles Francis Adams, Louis D. Brandeis, Lames Landis, Alfred E. Kahn. Cambridge, Mass.: Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 1984.

Mendenhall, Allen. “The Jeffersonian Jurist? A Reconsideration of Justice Louis Brandeis and the Libertarian Legal Tradition in the United States.” Elon Law Review, vol. 9, no. 2 (May 2017): 281-310.

Mersky, Roy M. Louis Dembitz Brandeis, 1856-1941: A Bibliography. New Haven, Conn.: Yale Law Library, 1958.

Moffie, Evan. The Making of an American Zionist: Reevaluating Louis Brandeis. Paolo Alto, Cal.: Stanford University History Department, 2000.

Murphy, Bruce Allen. The Brandeis/Frankfurter Connection: The Secret Political Activities of Two Supreme Court Justices. New York: Oxford University Press, 1982.

Oglio, Donna Marianne. “The American Reformer: Psychological and Sociological Origins: A Comparative Study of Jane Addams, Louis Dembitz Brandeis and William Jennings Bryan.” Ph.D. Diss., City University of New York, 1979.

Painter, Richard W. “Contracting Around Conflicts in a Family Representation: Louis Brandeis and the Warren Trust.” University of Chicago Law School Roundtable, vol. 8, no. 2 (2001): 353-80.

Paper, Lewis J. Brandeis: An Intimate Biography of one of America’s Truly Great Supreme Court Justices. New York: Prentice-Hall, 1983.

Peare, Catherine Owens. The Louis D. Brandeis Story. New York: Crowell, 1970.

Purcell, Edward A. Brandeis and the Progressive Constitution: Erie, the Judicial Power, and the Politics of the Federal Courts in Twentieth-Century America. New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 2000.

Rosen, Jeffrey. Louis D. Brandeis: American Prophet. New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 2016.

Roth, Larry M. “The Many Lives of Louis Brandeis: Progressive-Reformer. Supreme court Justice. Avowed Zionist. And a Racist?” Southern University Law Review, vol. 34, no. 2 (2007): 123-68.

Stern, Ellen Norman. Embattled Justice: The Story of Louis Dembitz Brandeis. Philadelphia: Jewish Publication Society of America, 1971.

Strum, Philippa. Louis D. Brandeis: Justice for the People. New York: Pantheon Books, 1989.

Strum, Philippa. Brandeis: Beyond Progressivism. Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, 1993.

Todd, A.L. Justice on Trial: The Case of Louis D. Brandeis. New York: Gryphon Editions, 1993.

Urofsky, Melvin I. Brandeis: A Life. New York, Pantheon Books, 2009.

________. “The Legacy of Louis D. Brandeis.” Journal of Appellate Practice and Process, vol. 13, no. 2 (Fall 2012): 189-98.

________. Louis D. Brandeis, American Zionist. Washington, DC: Jewish Historical Society of Greater Washington, 1992.

________. “Louis D. Brandeis and his Clerks.” University of Louisville Law Review, vol. 49, no. 2 (2010): 163-84.

________. A Mind of One Piece: Brandeis and American Reform. New York: Scribner, 1971.

Tributes: “Articles Celebrating the Brandeis Sesquicentennial.” Brandeis Law Journal, vol. 45, no. 4 (2007): 643-754.

Symposium: “Louis Brandeis: An Interdisciplinary Retrospective.” Touro Law Review, vol. 33, no. 1 (2017): 1-378.

Manuscript Collections

American Jewish Archives
Cincinnati, Ohio
Louis Dembitz Brandeis papers, ca. 1913-1966.
ca. 160 items and 32 microfilm reels; restricted; correspondence and miscellaneous papers relating to Zionism and other issues.

American Jewish Historical Society
Waltham, Mass.
Louis Dembitz Brandeis letters, 1886-1940.
14 letters; miscellaneous correspondence.

Brandeis University
Waltham, Mass.
Louis Dembitz Brandeis collection, 1858-1999.
101 linear ft.; finding aid; collection includes correspondence, financial documents, news clippings, and photographs documenting Brandeis's personal and public lives, as well as material on American legal history, politics, and Zionism.

The public papers of Justice Louis Dembitz Brandeis, 1879-1973.
8 microfilm reels; finding aid; Brandeis's papers dating from the period before his appointment to the Supreme Court.

Hadassah Archives
New York, N.Y.
Brandeis collection, 1915-1942.
0.6 linear ft.; finding aid; correspondence with Brandeis and material related to the Brandeis Memorial Forest.

Harvard Law School
Cambridge, Mass.
Louis Dembitz Brandeis miscellaneous correspondence, 1889-1936.
9 items; correspondence regarding Harvard Law School, the Harvard Law School Association, Michigan oil and gas fields, and other matters.

Louis Dembitz Brandeis papers, 1881-1966.
50 linear ft. (ca. 18,000 items); finding aid; restricted; collection contains working papers (1916-1939) for cases in which Brandeis wrote an opinion, including draft opinions with comments by other justices, memos and research notes by law clerks, and correspondence with fellow justices and others relating to those cases; as well as notes (2 vols.) by Felix Frankfurter of conversations with Brandeis at Chatham, Mass. (1922-1926), a bound set of opinions, and other papers.

Library of Congress
Washington, D.C.
Louis Demtiz Brandeis collection, 1926-1941.
4 items; collection is a part of the Miscellaneous Manuscripts collection.

University of Louisville Louis D. Brandeis School of Law
Louisville, Ky.
Louis Dembitz Brandeis papers, 1870-1941.
140 ft. (250,000 items); finding aid; restricted; collection contains Brandeis's legal and judicial papers, and correspondence.

State University of New York at Albany
Albany, N.Y.
Louis Dembitz Brandeis correspondence, 1870-1941.
21 linear ft.; copies of correspondence between Brandeis and his family, friends, and colleagues.

Federal Judicial Center

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Brandeis, Louis Dembitz