09-10-25 LOUIS BRANDEIS (1869-1941) & THE BRANDEIS BRIEF

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LOUIS BRANDEIS & THE BRANDEIS BRIEF

Associate Justice of the United States Supreme Court

In office June 5, 1916 – February 13, 1939

(Notes extracted from Wikipedia)

Louis Brandeis

A. First law firm: Warren and Brandeis

• .. when taking on business clients, he would insist on two major conditions: "first, that he would never have to deal with intermediaries, but only with the person in charge ... second, that he must be permitted to offer advice on any and all aspects of the firm's affairs" that seemed relevant.
• "he refused to serve in a cause that he considered bad," write Klebanow and Jonas. If he believed a client to be in the wrong, "either he would persuade his clients to make amends ... or he would withdraw from the case.
• Between 1888 and 1890, Brandeis and his law partner, Samuel Warren, collaborated on writing three scholarly articles which were published in the Harvard Law Review. Their third, entitled The Right to Privacy, was "by far the most important," ... accomplished 'nothing less than adding a chapter to our law.'"

B. Second Law-firm - Brandeis, Dunbar, and Nutter - public lawyer

• Against Monopolies - challenged the "industrial order in America," "He became more aware of the plight of workers and more sympathetic to the labor movement." "... concentrated economic power could have a negative effect on a free society."
• Against Powerful Corporations - As early as 1895 he had pointed out the harm that giant corporations could do to competitors, customers, and their own workers. ... leaders like Roosevelt saw the need to "regulate," but not limit, the growth and operation of corporate monopolies, whereas Brandeis felt the trend to bigness should be slowed, if not reversed.
• Against Public Corruption - declared that 'misgovernment in Boston had won a modest victory when the state legislature "enacted an anticorruption measure that he had drafted", after he died: after World War II, for instance, President Harry S Truman, who became a "disciple" of Brandeis, insisted on compulsory bidding for securities...
• The Role of the Legal Profession Democratic Society - "The great achievement of the English-speaking people is the attainment of liberty through law... able lawyers have, to a large extent, allowed themselves to become adjuncts of great corporations... The great opportunity of the American Bar is and will be to stand again as it did in the past, ready to protect also the interests of the people"
• Developing New Life Insurance System - ..he became counsel to a New England policyholder's committee... drafted his own bill, and three months later the "savings bank insurance measure was signed into law." He always said this bill was one of "his greatest achievements."
• Preventing JP Morgan Railroad Monopoly - His foes were the most powerful he had ever encountered.. "JP Morgan, the most powerful of all American bankers and probably the most dominating figure in all of American business."..Banking historian Ron Chernow - "For the House of Morgan, Louis Brandeis was more than just a critic, he was an adversary of almost mythical proportion."
• Protecting Individuals against Big Banks - In 1913, Brandeis had written a series of articles for Harper's Weekly that suggested ways of curbing the power of large banks and money trusts. Then in 1914 he published a book entitled "Other People's Money and How the Bankers Use It". A quote: "Publicity is justly commended as a remedy for social and industrial diseases. Sunlight is said to be the best of disinfectants; electric light the most efficient policeman." .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .With the play recently staged, a current reviewer wrote in the NYT, 2009: "Our current crisis, after all, was in part fueled by bankers making big gambles with other people's cash. They bundled and sold sub-prime mortgages, took their profits, and then left others holding portfolios full of worthless, even toxic, paper. This was exactly the kind of behavior that Brandeis despised."

C. The "Brandeis Brief"

In 1908 he chose to represent the state of Oregon in the case of Muller v Oregon, to the U.S. Supreme Court. At issue was whether it was constitutional for a state law to limit the hours that female workers could work. Up until this time it was considered an "unreasonable infringement of freedom of contract" between employers and their employees for a state to set any wages or hours legislation.

To accomplish this, he filed what has become known today as the "Brandeis Brief". "Here, he presented a much shorter traditional brief, but included more than a hundred pages of documentation, including social worker reports, medical conclusions, factory inspector observations, and other expert testimonials, which together showed a preponderance of evidence that "when women worked long hours, it was destructive to their health and morals."

It had "a profound impact on the future of the legal profession"... "Brandies Brief" was increasingly used, most notably in the Brown v Board of Education case in 1954 that desegragated public schools.

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In short - the Brandeis Brief avoided arguments based on legal theories, instead - he used health statistics and pure statistical arguments to conclude the destructive effects of sweatshop work practices.

I believe that similar arguments would be made in indictment and prosecutions of alleged racketeering in the LA Superior Court, in part - by necessity. The arguments I am referring to would be either statistical or derived from the field of logic and computer science. The reason is, the I allege that racketeering in the LA Superior Court was enabled through its case management system - Sustain. There is beauty in it. Because in the past, indictment of judges required long term sting operations secret recordings, etc. And such operations were always of questionable nature- were the judges in fact entrapped? Were their right violated?

In the new type of court corruption cases that are alleged in the LA Superior Court, there would be no need for sting operations, eavesdropping, etc., because the alleged crimes would be all registered and recorded in computers. The indictments would be based on analysis of computer records. My claim is that such records can be read as catalogs of criminalities.

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