Brandeis Brief
The Brandeis Brief was a pioneering legal brief that was the first in United States legal history to rely not on pure legal theory, but also on analysis of factual data. It is named after litigator Louis Brandeis, who presented it in his argument for the 1908 US Supreme Court case Muller v. Oregon. However, the brief was researched and co-written by Brandeis's sister-in-law, legal reformer Josephine Clara Goldmark of the National Consumers League, who collected empirical data from hundreds of sources to show the effects of long hours and harsh working conditions on wage-earning women.[1]
The Brandeis Brief changed the direction of the Supreme Court and of U.S. law. The Brandeis Brief became the model for future Supreme Court presentations in cases affecting the health or welfare of classes of individuals. This model was later successfully used in Brown v. Board of Education to demonstrate the harmful psychological effects of segregated education on African-American children.
[edit] References
- ^ Jewish Women's Archive, "Josephine Clara Goldmark."
[edit] Further reading
- Evans, Sandra S.; Scott, Joseph E. (1983). "Social Scientists as Expert Witnesses: Their Use, Misuse, and Sometimes Abuse". Law & Policy Quarterly 5 (2): 181–214. ISSN 01640267.
- Garfinkel, Herbert (1959). "Social Science Evidence and the School Segregation Cases". Journal of Politics (Cambridge University Press) 21 (1): 37–59. doi:10.2307/2126643. JSTOR 2126643.
- Tomkins, Alan J.; Oursland, Kevin (1991). "Social and social scientific perspectives in judicial interpretations of the constitution: A historical view and an overview". Law and Human Behavior 15 (2): 101–120. doi:10.1007/BF01044613.
[edit] External links
- The full Brandeis Brief, courtesy of the Louis D. Brandeis School of Law (University of Louisville)
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