Justice Louis D. Brandeis.

As a possible sign of the new leadership at the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, an honors program named after Louis Brandeis—known as “the people's attorney”—has been renamed after a different famous Supreme Court justice: Joseph Story, a strong property rights advocate.

“Today, we're announcing that this fellowship, formerly known as the Louis D. Brandeis Honors Attorney Program, will be renamed the Joseph Story Honors Attorney Program,” a press release from the bureau stated.

The program is a two-year fellowship that gives law students and new lawyers “opportunities for training and education not only to gain a deeper understanding of the bureau's mission and work, but also to enhance analytical thinking, writing, communication and other legal skills,” the agency said.

The bureau's communications office did not respond to questions about why the change was made.

Richard Cordray, the first director of the Obama-era agency, resigned on Nov. 24, triggering a standoff over leadership. President Donald Trump named budget director Mick Mulvaney as interim director, but the agency's deputy director Leandra English is challenging the appointment in court.

“Justice Brandeis was a natural namesake for the CFPB's honors program,” said Deepak Gupta of Gupta Wessler, a consumer lawyer who is also representing English. “He was a prophetic voice on the dangers of giving big financial interests too much power over the lives of Americans and he fought for economic justice.”

Gupta added, “Justice Story, on the other hand, makes no sense in this context. His role as a jurist long predates modern consumer-protection law, the rise of large corporate financial interests, and all of the concerns that make the CFPB necessary. I suspect that the real reason for renaming the program was to signal, in a totally symbolic way, the abandonment of the bureau's statutory mission.”

The bureau's press release offers some hints about why Story, a justice from 1811 to 1845, is being honored, but not about why Brandeis was sidelined.

Justice Joseph Story. Credit: Wiki Commons

“Joseph Story was one of the most influential legal scholars of the 19th century,” the release stated. “A successful author, he wrote the famous 'Commentaries on the Constitution of the United States,' a work that has cemented his reputation as a patriot dedicated to judicial restraint and the faithful application of the U.S. Constitution as written.”

Story was also known for favoring a strong national government. “Story, like other nationalists of the early Republic, saw deep connections between a strong federal government and the growth of commerce and industry,” according to the Biographical Encyclopedia of the Supreme Court. “For Story, the nurturance of commerce and the protection of property were two sides of the same coin.”

Brandeis was a well-known pro-consumer litigator before joining the high court in 1916, filing suits against trusts and investigating the insurance industry. Business leaders fought against his nomination to the Supreme Court, claiming he was a radical. The Senate confirmed him by a 47-22 vote, and he served until retiring in 1939.

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