John Q. Barrett, St. John's University School of Law, has posted Felix Frankfurter, Collector of People:
--Dan ErnstThis essay is part of the Touro Law Review symposium issue, “The Life, Work & Legacy of Felix Frankfurter.” It grew out of Touro Law School’s April 19, 2023, Frankfurter conference, which was inspired by Brad Snyder’s publication of the biography Democratic Justice: Felix Frankfurter, the Supreme Court, and the Making of the Liberal Establishment.
Felix Frankfurter (LC)
This essay describes how Felix Frankfurter engaged, intensely, with people—they were the treasures that he hunted down, evaluated, and collected. It considers some of Frankfurter’s most treasured people. One group is people who made Frankfurter, including Henry L. Stimson, and Franklin D. Roosevelt. Another group is Justice Frankfurter’s three great U.S. Supreme Court colleagues: Justices Hugo L. Black, Robert H. Jackson, and William O. Douglas. A third group is biographers who Frankfurter admired and pushed: Harlan Buddington Phillips, Mark DeWolfe Howe, Jr., McGeorge Bundy, Alexander M. Bickel, Andrew L. Kaufman, and Philip B. Kurland.
Biographer Brad Snyder has, by himself collecting Frankfurter and portraying him so fully and so well, brought his people-collecting into focus. I hope that Snyder’s biography stimulates others to study Frankfurter, to recover his stolen papers, to write more about him, to publish more of his writings, and to live people-filled lives.
The Touro Law Review Frankfurter symposium issue includes, in addition to my essay, this superb content: an introduction by Rodger Citron, conference organizer; a keynote address by Frankfurter biographer Brad Snyder; and essays and articles by Judge Jed S. Rakoff, R.B. Bernstein, William E. Nelson, Helen J. Knowles-Gardner, and Dalia Tsuk.
