He set up his own practice at first at Smithfield, London, but later joined Winter & Kaye, a well-established law firm, as a partner.

Freshfield had close connections with the Clapham Sect, a group of leading Evangelicals who held influential positions in the city and the legal profession.

Freshfield was an active member of the Church Missionary Society, which was dedicated to the abolition of slavery and later became one of its trustees.

Freshfield lived next to Fleetwood House, where his neighbour and associate William Allen set up the Newington Academy for Girls in 1824.

Freshfield was in correspondence with the Prime Minister, Lord Liverpool and more distressingly involved in litigation relating to misappropriation of Bank funds by the firm's partner Charles Kaye, which led to the resignation of the latter.

Inevitably prior to the abolition of slavery in 1833 several of Freshfield's wealthier clients owned estates in the Caribbean and so conflicts arose with his anti-slavery convictions.

[2] In one instance the firm tried to claim unpaid legal fees through the government scheme set up to compensate owners after abolition.

[3] In 1829 the firm was involved in handling the divorce case concerning Lady Ellenborough, a society scandal of the time.

[4] "While practising as a solicitor, he was the main instrument in the alteration of the law, so important to the commercial interests of London, by which the dealings of merchants and factors entrusted with goods by foreigners were legalised and made valid.