Season 2, Episode 41 (Show 93): Zelig of the Court – Special Guest Brad Snyder

October 5, 2022

He was everywhere and knew everyone.  He was perhaps the most influential person in the nation.  And oh yes, he was an important Supreme Court Justice.  Felix Frankfurter’s biographer, Brad Snyder, joins us and tells the amazing tale of a titanic figure you probably knew little of.

Do you know who was Franklin Roosevelt’s most trusted advisor? Do you know who practically invented the law clerk infrastructure and controlled the clerk assignments to 60% of the justices at once?  Do you know who was a key early reporter for The New Republic? Do you know who was the first Jewish professor at the Harvard Law School?  Who was the sharpest critic of the Supreme Court only to become a Justice of that Court?  Who went to Versailles and advised both Weizmann and T.E. Lawrence? Who fought bitter battles with Harvard’s President again and again? These are all the same person:  Felix Frankfurter.  A new and important biography of Justice Frankfurter tells this incredible story, and he joins our podcast today:  Professor Brad Snyder.  Believe it or not, the superlatives you just read only scratch the surface of this Man Who Was Everywhere.  You have to hear it all.