He served as a judge of the Employment Court of New Zealand and Chief Justice of the Kingdom of Tonga.

In 1970, he was admitted to the bar in Auckland and in July the same year he joined the law firm Bell Gully in Wellington.

He specialised initially in personal injury work and then in employment law, commercial litigation and defamation cases.

[3] In those capacities he carried out significant reforms of the Kingdom’s judicial system and in June 2008 he received international recognition for his work when he was invited to travel to New York to be presented with the World Bank’s Reformer of the Year award on behalf of the Tongan judiciary.

In August 2008, Ford was made a Knight Commander of the Order of Queen Sālote Tupou III by the King of Tonga, George Tupou V.[6] On 25 March 2010, Ford was appointed to the position of judge of the Employment Court of New Zealand, although he did not take up that position until the expiration of his Tongan contract in September 2010.