James Fitzjames Stephen - Law Career

Law Career

After leaving Cambridge, Fitzjames Stephen decided to go into law. He was called to the bar in 1854. His own estimation of his professional success—written in later years—was that in spite of such training rather than because of it, he became a moderately successful advocate and a rather distinguished judge.

His legal career was a notable one: He was a member of the Viceregal Council and later Professor of Common Law at the Inns of Court. He was largely occupied with official work on codification, the results of which were never used. He was, however, responsible for the Indian Evidence Act, 1872. In 1879 he became a judge of the High Court.

In his earlier years at the bar he supplemented his income from a successful but modest practice with journalism. He contributed to the Saturday Review from the time it was founded in 1855. He was in company with Maine, Harcourt, G.S. Venables, Charles Bowen, E.A. Freeman, Goldwin Smith and others. Both the first and the last books published by Stephen were selections from his papers in the Saturday Review (Essays by a Barrister, 1862, anonymous; Horae sabbaticae, 1892). These volumes embodied the results of his studies of publicists and theologians, chiefly English, from the 17th century onwards. He never professed his essays to be more than the occasional products of an amateur's leisure, but they were well received.

From 1858 to 1861, Stephen served as secretary to a Royal Commission on popular education, whose conclusions were promptly put into effect. In 1859 he was appointed Recorder of Newark. In 1863 he published his General View of the Criminal Law of England, the first attempt made since William Blackstone to explain the principles of English law and justice in a literary form, and it enjoyed considerable success. The foundation of the Pall Mall Gazette in 1865 gave Stephen a new literary avenue. He continued to contribute until he became a judge.

The decisive point of his career was in the summer of 1869, when he accepted the post of legal member of the Colonial Council in India. His friend Maine was his immediate predecessor: Guided by Maine's comprehensive talents, the government of India had entered a period of systematic legislation which was to last about twenty years. Stephen had the task of continuing this work by conducting the Bills through the Legislative Council. The Native Marriages Act of 1872 was the result of deep consideration on both Maine's and Stephen's part. The Indian Contract Act had been framed in England by a learned commission, and the draft was materially altered in Stephen's hands before, also in 1872, it became law.