Brandeis, Louis Dembitz (1856–1941)

US jurist. As a crusader for progressive causes, he helped draft social-welfare and labour legislation. In 1916, with his appointment to the US Supreme Court by President Woodrow Wilson, he became the first Jewish justice and maintained his support of individual rights in his opposition to the 1917 Espionage Act and in his dissenting opinion in the first wiretap case, Olmstead v US in 1928.

Born in Louisville, Kentucky, Brandeis was educated at Harvard and was admitted to the bar in 1877. Brandeis University in Waltham, Massachusetts, is named in his honor.