He soon got a chair in the Fluminense Federal University Law School, in Niterói- then Rio de Janeiro's capital city- as a teacher of Penal Process, in 1916.

His work, versing about the formation of Brazilian people, has the merit of being one of the first which endeavored to address the subject under a sociological and differentiated view.

He got notoriously known for quotes like ''the 200 million Hindu are not worth the handful of British who dominates them'', and ''the Japanese are like sulphur: insoluble'', and also ''the Party is the President'', referring to Getúlio Vargas.

As a jurist, his specialty was Labor Law, an incipient branch in Brazil, which he helped to consolidate, being one of the organizers of the Brazilian sindical system and its financing.

He was elected on May 27, 1937, for the chair number 8 of the Academia, whose founding patron is Cláudio Manuel da Costa, as its second occupant.