[3] After entering Middle Temple as a student in 1865, Finlay was called to the bar two years later and built up a successful practice, becoming a Queen's Counsel in 1882.

[5] For his services in representing the British Empire in a number of international legal arbitrations he was appointed GCMG in 1904, and the following year became a Privy Counsellor.

However, in the 1906 general election he again lost his seat, and it was four years before he returned to Parliament as member for Edinburgh and St Andrews Universities.

[6] It is generally thought that Finlay was a temporary appointment: Lloyd George excluded him from the War Cabinet and insisted that he forgo the £5,000 pension given to retired lord chancellors.

As a judge of the Permanent Court, he participated in the celebrated Lotus case in 1927, where the Court, by a bare majority, laid down the "Lotus principle" that States may exercise extraterritorial jurisdiction i.e. they may apply their national laws beyond their own borders, in any case where this is not explicitly prohibited.