First Page
783
Abstract
On February 13, 1939, Louis D. Brandeis wrote the following note to his Chief Executive:
Dear Mr. President:Pursuant to the Act of March 1, 1937, I retire this day from regular service on the bench. Cordially, Louis D. Brandeis
With this brief, laconic statement, he ended twenty-three years on the Supreme Court of the United States at the age of eighty-two. In frail health, but still retaining the intellectual vigor he displayed all his life, he stepped down from the bench to make way for a younger member. This act in itself was characteristic of Brandeis; his respect for the Court was so great he dared not over-stay his usefulness and impair the operation of the Court. It has been said that his career on the bench was "the great work of his life, to which all else was prelude .... "
Recommended Citation
Marion E. Doro,
The Brandeis Brief,
11 Vanderbilt Law Review
783
(1958)
Available at: https://scholarship.law.vanderbilt.edu/vlr/vol11/iss3/6