George Weston Anderson

George Weston Anderson (September 1, 1861 - February 14, 1938) was a judge of the United States Court of Appeals for the First Circuit.

Biography

Born on a farm in Acworth, New Hampshire, Anderson received an A.B. with honors from Williams College in 1886 and an LL.B. magna cum laude from the Boston University School of Law in 1890. He then went into private practice as a lawyer in Boston, Massachusetts. While in practice, he was an instructor at the Boston University School of Law from 1891 to 1894. He once ran for state Attorney General, served on the Boston School Committee, and in 1913 accepted an appointment to the Massachusetts Commerce Commission. He later served on the state's Public Service Commission.

President Woodrow Wilson appointed him United States Attorney for Massachusetts and he served in that position from 1914 to 1917, followed by one year as a member of the Interstate Commerce Commission. In 1916, he worked to win Senate approval of Louis Brandeis when he was nominated to the Supreme Court, serving as counsel to the subcommittee that considered the nomination and conducting some of the crucial cross examination of witnesses.Melvin I. Urofsky, Louis D. Brandeis: A Life (Pantheon, 2009), 443-5, 452-3, 457, 832

Wilson named Anderson as a Judge of the First Circuit on October 1, 1918, to a seat vacated by Frederic Dodge. Anderson was confirmed by the United States Senate and received his commission on October 24, 1918. He served as an...
Read More