[3] Briefly entering business with the Basel Mission Trading Company, he entered the Middle Temple in England in 1910 and was called to the Bar on 10 April 1913, along with Sir James Henley Coussey who later chaired the Constitutional Committee set up in December 1949 to draw up a new Constitution for the Gold Coast.

[3][1] On his return from London, Quist enrolled as a barrister in private practice at the Gold Coast Bar, establishing his chambers in Accra.

[3] Quist became the first African Crown Counsel in the Gold Coast Civil Service, equivalent to the position of a State Attorney.

[3] The elevation of Quist in 1949 happened after the last Governor of the Gold Coast, Sir Charles Arden-Clarke relinquished his concurrent post as the President of the Legislative Council.

[3][19] In 1957, he presided over the special state opening of Parliament on Ghana's Independence Day, 6 March, which was witnessed by several visiting international dignitaries including Princess Marina, Duchess of Kent, Queen Elizabeth II's special representative for the occasion as well as the then US Vice President Richard Nixon and the American civil rights activist, Martin Luther King Jr.[3][20][21] On 27 June 1929, Quist married Dinah Nita Bruce of Christiansborg, Accra.

Upon Quist's death in 1959, the Ghanaian government accorded him a state funeral with full military honours.

[1][24]"The Speakers' Conference Hall" at the Parliament House has been named after Sir Emmanuel Charles Quist.

[25] A commemorative plaque, sponsored by his wife, Lady Dinah Quist, was erected in his memory in the sanctuary of the Ebenezer Presbyterian Church, Osu where he was a congregant.