He married Catharine Parsons (daughter of Sir William Parsons and Elizabeth Lany), by whom he had four sons and four daughters, including Richard, his heir, and Dorothy, who married Sir John Feilding, secretary to the Governor of Jamaica.
[1] His favourite sister Anne married James Donnellan, later Chief Justice of the Irish Common Pleas, but died young: her brother and her husband remained close throughout their lives.
[2] Adam Cusack, Chief Justice of Connacht, was a cousin in the next generation of James on his mother's side.
He published in 1637, at the request of Lord Wentworth, to whom he dedicated it, The Case of Tenures upon the Commission of Defective Titles, argued by all the Judges of Ireland, with the Resolution and the Reasons of their Resolution, a crucial test case from the Crown's point of view.
In 1640 he used what influence he had, but in vain, with Sir James Ware and other members of the Irish House of Commons, to prevent their sending a committee of their body to England to impeach the Earl of Strafford, as Wentworth now was.
He was accused, rather obscurely, of being "a cold friend" to the Declaration, and this, as well as his increasing infirmity, was one of the "material objections" which led to his being rejected as Speaker of the Irish House of Lords.
As Treasurer and Council member of the King's Inns he was accused of being dilatory and inefficient, perhaps as a result of the "infirmity" referred to above.