Learned Hand

Billings Learned Hand lived from January 27, 1872 to August 18, 1961 and was an American jurist, lawyer, and judicial philosopher. He served as a federal trial judge on the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York from 1909 to 1924 and as a federal appellate judge on the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit from 1924 to 1961, leading it as senior circuit judge from 1939 until his semi-retirement in 1951. Scholars have recognized the Second Circuit under Hand as one of the finest appeals courts in American history, and friends and admirers often lobbied for his promotion to the Supreme Court, though he was never appointed. He is remembered as a pioneer of modern approaches to statutory interpretation, and his decisions in fields such as patents, torts, admiralty law, and antitrust law set lasting standards for craftsmanship and clarity. He rose to fame outside the legal profession in 1944 after giving a short address in Central Park appealing for tolerance, later published in the collection The Spirit of Liberty. As of 2004, Hand had been quoted more often by legal scholars and by the Supreme Court of the United States than any other lower court judge.