FIREBRAND FOR JUSTICE: A Biography of Louis Dembitz Brandeis

How Brandeis, a successful corporation lawyer, became the people's advocate in a series of anti-monopoly, anti-exploitation cases and introduced social and economic considerations into judicial decisions--via the celebrated ""Brandeis brief""--is demonstrated clearly and simply in this otherwise unimpressive biography. Unimpressive not because it is invalid--his traits and his activities are set forth properly--but because it lacks the precision and acumen that marked the man. Neither is his portrait compelling in itself except in the instance of the Ballinger affair when (to the dismay of his friends and colleagues) he called into question the veracity of even the President; recounted in detail, this incident shows him at his most formidable. The whole is a pleasant popularization that tends to make Brandeis a model rather than an individual but it suffices for an introduction.