Carman was appointed Queen's Counsel in 1971, and moved to Byrom Street Chambers, with a London seat at 5 Essex Court in the Temple.
This case brought him to the attention of the London solicitor David Napley, who instructed him to represent Jeremy Thorpe, the former Leader of the Liberal Party.
In 1979, after successfully defending Thorpe, who was charged with three other men with conspiracy to murder Norman Scott in a case which became the cause célèbre of the decade, he became involved in several significant criminal trials during the 1980s.
He later said of Arthur, who had been accused of murdering a Down's syndrome baby: "He was a very dedicated doctor and clearly a kind and moral man who had done much good for thousands of mothers in this country – hundreds of whom wrote to him and sent flowers during the trial.
[8] In 1982, Carman unsuccessfully defended Geoffrey Prime, a British spy who sold and disclosed information to the Soviet Union and also indecently assaulted young girls.
[11] Also in 1983, he successfully defended Coronation Street actor Peter Adamson, who was acquitted of indecently assaulting two eight-year-old girls in a public swimming pool in Haslingden.
"[8] He also successfully represented Carole Richardson, one of the Guildford Four, falsely accused of a 1974 deadly pub bombing carried out by the Provisional IRA — when their convictions were quashed on appeal in 1989.
He became known for his celebrity clients, attracting headlines for his robust cross-examination, colourful one-liners in court and for winning difficult cases against seemingly insurmountable odds.
When called back to Manchester in 1991 to save the Haçienda nightclub from the threat of police closure, Carman soon found the problem: the proclamations of owner Tony Wilson.
"[15] Carman's reputation was built through representing The News of the World against Sonia Sutcliffe, The Sun against Gillian Taylforth, Elton John against Mirror Group Newspapers, Richard Branson in the "dirty tricks" cases against British Airways and GTech, Imran Khan against fellow former cricketers, Ian Botham and Allan Lamb, Tom Cruise and Nicole Kidman against Express Newspapers, and Mohamed Al-Fayed against Neil Hamilton, as well as his representation of Channel 4 when they were sued for libel by South African journalist Jani Allan.
[19] His son Dominic [3] wrote a biography of his father, No Ordinary Man: A Life of George Carman, in 2002 and stood as a Liberal Democrat candidate in Barking for the 2010 General election[20] and at the 2011 Barnsley Central by-election.
According to an obituary published in The Lawyer on 9 January 2001, Carman "...was thought of by many as one of the most difficult men in the legal profession, with a somewhat brash and even obnoxious persona.