He was the Chief Justice of Hong Kong from 1988 to 1996, the only ethnic Chinese person to hold this office during British colonial rule.
After the transfer of sovereignty over Hong Kong, he was appointed a non-official member of the Executive Council by Tung and retired in 2002.
In September 2003, he became the host of a RTHK radio programme, Yang Ti-liang Mail Box (楊鐵樑留言信箱), teaching English grammar.
Due to the Chinese Civil War, he moved very briefly to Hong Kong before graduating, where he stayed at St. John's Hall in 1949.
On 17 February 1975, he presided over the watershed corruption trial of Peter Fitzroy Godber, a former Kowloon Deputy District Commissioner of the Royal Hong Kong Police Force.
Yang's predecessor, however, Sir Denys Tudor Emil Roberts, continued to serve as Chief Justice of Brunei Darussalam after his retirement.
In 1996, Yang tendered his resignation to then governor Chris Patten in order to clear the way for his candidacy in the first ever Chief Executive election.
[5] Before the election, he organised a series of campaigns, including visiting public housing estates, and travelled on the Mass Transit Railway subway system for the first time in his life.
On 11 December 1996, the small-circle Election Committee selected Tung Chee Hwa, a shipping magnate, over Yang to be Chief Executive.
Yang was appointed a Non-Official Member of the Executive Council by Tung soon after the establishment of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region.
In 2005, he was appointed honorary professor and chairman of the Executive Committee of the School of Law by the Chinese University of Hong Kong.