Abstracts » Law

The canonization of Holmes and Brandeis: epistemology and judicial reputations

Article Abstract:

The canonization of US Supreme Court Justices Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr. and Louis D. Brandeis that developed in the 1930s and persists today is a result of their epistemologically modern approach to the law and judicial decision-making. They are perceived as visionaries that were more in touch with the future than their contemporaries were. Their modernism was revealed differently on the Court. Brandeis was more concerned with policy and Holmes with philosophy, but both questioned the universality of law.

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Biographies of titans: Holmes, Brandeis, and other obsessions

Article Abstract:

The dominance and canonization of US Supreme Court Justices Louis D. Brandeis and Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr. in judicial biography raises questions of who is an appropriate subject for such biographies and what makes a judge great. The canonization of Holmes and Brandeis cannot be justified solely on the farsightedness and the impact of their decisions. Holmes and Brandeis both possessed qualities that distinguished them from other notable justices. They also benefitted from promotion by Felix Frankfurter.

Beliefs, opinions and attitudes, Panel Discussion, Gordon, Sarah Barringer, Noonan, John T., Jr., Reid, John Phillip

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The creation of a usable judicial past: Max Lerner, class conflict, and the propagation of judicial titans

Article Abstract:

Analysis of the process by which US Supreme Court Justices Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr. and Louis D. Brandeis were canonized in the 1930s should focus on the writings of one of their first advocates, Max Lerner. Lerner and other immigrants and liberals were attempting to develop rational means of approaching the socio-economic conditions in the US in the New Deal era. The appeal of Holmes and Brandeis to Lerner was not centered on their epistemological modernism but on their usefulness to liberalism.

Works, Lerner, Max

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