Billings Learned Hand was a United States judge and judicial philosopher. He served on the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York and later the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit. Hand has been quoted more often by legal scholars and by the Supreme Court of the United States than any other lowercourt judge.
Billings Learned Hand was born on January 27, 1872, in Albany, New York, the second and last child of Samuel Hand and Lydia Hand . His mothers family traditionally used surnames as given names and Hand was named for a maternal uncle and a grandfather, both named Billings Peck Learned. The Hands were a prominent family with a tradition of activism in the Democratic Party. Hand grew up in comfortable circumstances on Albanys main residential street. The family had an almost hereditary attachment to the legal profession and has been described as the most distinguished legal family in northern New York.
Source: Wikipedia