Holmes, Jr., Oliver Wendell (1841–1935)

Abstract Oliver Wendell Holmes was an American jurist, justice of the US Supreme Court (1902–32), and a founder of “legal realism” – defining law as a strictly historical construct buffeted by politics, without grounding in natural law or impartial logic. Holmes led a transformation of both American common law and judicial power; his writings and judicial opinions thus inform contemporary debates in America (and beyond) about judicial activism and constitutional interpretation. Holmes and his supporters redefined common law, by the mid‐twentieth century, as “case law” and “judge‐made law,” thus as more relevant for social reform and progress.