[1] He practiced law with MacKeigan, Cox, Downie and Mitchell in Halifax, eventually becoming a senior partner.
He was chairman of the Atlantic Development Board from 1963 to 1969, and was a member of the Economic Council of Canada from 1965 to 1971.
[1] He was the first chief justice of the province appointed directly from the bar since James McDonald in 1881.
He resigned in 1985 as a result of the controversy surrounding the wrongful conviction of Donald Marshall Jr.
He continued to sit as a supernumerary judge until he reached the mandatory retirement age of 75 in 1996.