[3] His sister Judith White Brockenbrough McGuire would later write Diary of a Southern Refugee, During the War, By a Lady of Virginia.

[citation needed] Brockenbrough was admitted to the Virginia bar and began a private practice in Hanover County until 1834.

[2] In 1837, he published two volumes of reports, containing the decisions of John Marshall's federal circuit court opinions.

[citation needed] In his introductory address to the first class of incoming students, Brockenbrough offered this advice: Sooner or later the occasion will arise when you will appear before the dread tribunal of the public.

They listen with surprised delight at the display of your learning and ingenuity, now enraptured with your splendid bursts of indignant eloquence, now melted into pity by some master stroke of touching pathos.

Your reputation is now established on a firm basis, and the voice of hissing envy shall not retard your onward march.

We are told by Mr. Butler in his "Reminiscences," that a celebrated English lawyer of the last century had said, that so sudden was his rise at the Bar, that he never knew the difference between having no income at all, and one of £3,000 sterling a year.

[5] Along with John Tyler, William C. Rives, James Seddon, and George W. Summers, Brockenbrough represented Virginia at the peace conference of 1861.

[citation needed] Following his resignation from the federal bench, Brockenbrough became one of Virginia's delegates to the Provisional Congress of the Confederate States from 1861 to 1862.

[citation needed] In 1866, Lee as President of Washington College invited Brockenbrough to merge his Lexington Law School with Washington College, and continue to teach as Professor of Law and Equity.