His client Colin Campbell Ross was convicted of the murder of a 12-year-old girl and subsequently executed, in what came to be regarded as a miscarriage of justice.

[6] Maxwell ran unsuccessfully for various Victorian Legislative Assembly seats: Collingwood in 1891; Prahran in 1897; Warrnambool in 1900; Carlton in 1902 and Evelyn in 1914.

In parliament, he disliked what he saw as the sectionalism of the Country and Labor parties and, following his conscience, he voted against the Bruce-Page government on a number of issues in 1929.

He was one of six Nationalists, including Billy Hughes, who brought the government down by voting against the maritime industries bill and as a result was unopposed by Labor at the 1929 election.

Following his death at home in the Melbourne suburb of Canterbury, his seat of Fawkner was won by future Prime Minister Harold Holt.