If we desire respect for the law, we must first make the law respectable.

Louis D. Brandeis, a leading Progressive-era lawyer and later Associate Justice of the U.S. Supreme Court, made this remark in the early 1920s amid national debate over Prohibition and the broader problem of lawbreaking. In that period, widespread evasion of the Volstead Act, uneven enforcement, and official corruption were frequently cited as reasons public confidence in legal institutions was eroding. Brandeis’s warning reflects his long-standing concern that the legitimacy of law depends not only on formal authority but on the law’s moral credibility and fair administration. The line is often quoted as part of his critique of laws that invite contempt by being impractical, unjust, or selectively enforced.

The statement argues that obedience cannot be demanded purely by coercion or tradition; it must be earned. A legal system gains durable authority when its rules are perceived as just, workable, and impartially applied. If lawmakers enact measures that most people experience as hypocritical, unenforceable, or corruptly administered, the public learns to treat law as something to evade rather than a shared civic commitment. Brandeis’s point also implies a reciprocal duty: officials must model integrity, and legislation should align with social realities and ethical standards. In modern terms, the quote is a concise theory of legitimacy—respect for law is a consequence of respectable lawmaking and trustworthy institutions.