Melvin I. Urofsky’s book is a thorough memoir of a legal giant in the United States, Louis Brandeis – an attorney, reformer, judge and Zionist. Born in 1856, Brandeis was a curious individual whose law profession was as illustrious as his position on the bench.

From the beginning of his comprehensive study, Urofsky, the author of Money and Free Speech: Campaign Finance Reform and the Courts written in 2005, admitted that he had his share of challenges in getting most of the details of Brandeis’ life.

Louis Brandeis, who had been a practitioner in Boston for almost four decades, persistently pursued “all the facts that surround” each case and his penchant for including economic and sociological elements in his legal arguments formed a model that was later labeled as “Brandeis brief.” Brandeis paved the way for the modern law office practice and his pro bono efforts representing various progressive reforms that involved transportation, utilities and insurance earned him the name the “People’s Attorney.”

As the first Jewish person appointed to the Supreme Court in 1916, Brandeis held up a strong opposition against conservatives who were not in favor of his liberal notions. For 23 years of his professional life, he continued to invite opinions and author views taking on the former prevailing legal classicism that prohibited innovation. Frequently seen with friend and colleague, Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes, he was known for opposing in several civil liberties cases, particularly insisting on the right of Americans “to be let alone.”

Melvin Urofsky pulled together all information relevant to the personal and professional life of Brandeis. Urofsky has an exceptional skill in placing the justice in its accurate legal and historical context, in explicating Brandeis’ zealous involvement to the Zionist movement and in making complicated legal issues logical for the general reader.

Louis D. Brandeis: A Life is a solid and striking assessment of a man whose skill in legal reasoning continues to have a strong impact in the republic, long after his death in 1941.