1. Can We Still Learn Anything from Holmes?

3. Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.

4. Holmes at 20 (1861)

7. Holmes at 32 (1872)

8. Holmes Timeline 1841: Born in Boston 1857-61: Harvard College
: Soldier in Civil War; wounded at Ball’s Bluff, Antietam and Chancellorsville
Harvard Law School; first trip to Europe
1867 Admitted to practice law; begins writing on legal topics

9. Holmes Timeline (part 2)
1872 Marries Fannie Bowditch Dixwell; continues practice; edits Kent’s Commentaries; lectures at Harvard Law School
1881 Publication of The Common Law
1882 Leaves practice to teach full time
1882 Appointed to Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court
1902 Appointed to US Supreme Court
1932 Retires from US Supreme Court
1935 Dies at home in Washington, DC

11. Eugene Debs

12. U.S. Supreme Court

13. “Old Senate Chamber” Supreme Court Courtroom, 1860 - 1935

14. “The life of the law has not been logic; is has been experience
“The life of the law has not been logic; is has been experience. The felt necessities of the time, the prevalent moral and political theories, intuitions of public policy, avowed or unconscious, even the prejudices which judges share with their fellow-men, have a good deal more to do than the syllogism in determining the rules by which men should be governed.” O.W. Holmes, The Common Law