The Encyclopedia Americana (1920)/Brandeis, Louis Dembitz

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.