was called to the Nova Scotia Bar, placing first in the bar examinations. He went to Kentville, Nova Scotia, as the junior partner of the Conservative lawyer John P. Chipman. In 1880, Borden was inducted into the Freemasons St Andrew's lodge #1. In 1882, Borden, despite being a Liberal, accepted Wallace Graham's request to move to Halifax and join the Conservative law firm headed by Graham and Charles Hibbert Tupper. In 1886, Borden broke with the Liberal Party after he disagreed with Premier William Stevens Fielding's campaign to withdraw Nova Scotia from Confederation. In the autumn of 1889, when he was only 35, Borden became the senior partner following the departure of Graham and Tupper for the bench and politics, respectively. His financial future guaranteed, on September 25, 1889, Borden married Laura Bond, the daughter of a Halifax hardware merchant. They would have no children. Bond would later serve as president of the Local Council of Women of Halifax, until her resignation in 1901. She also would later serve as president of the Aberdeen Association, vice-president of the Women's Work Exchange in Halifax, and corresponding secretary of the Associated Charities of the United States. The Bordens spent several weeks vacationing in England and Europe in the summers of 1891 and 1893. In 1894, Borden bought a large property and home on the south side of Quinpool Road, which the couple called Pinehurst. In 1893, Borden successfully argued the first of two cases which he took to the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council. He represented many of the important Halifax businesses and sat on the boards of Nova Scotian companies, including the Bank of Nova Scotia and the Crown Life Insurance Company. By the mid-1890s, Borden's firm was so prominent that it attracted notable clients, such as the Bank of Nova Scotia, Canada Atlantic Steamship, and the Nova Scotia Telephone Company. Borden had several court cases in Ottawa, and while in that city he would frequently meet with Prime Minister John Sparrow David Thompson, a fellow Nova Scotian. In 1896, Borden became president of the Nova Scotia Barristers' Society and took the initiative in organizing the founding meetings of the Canadian Bar Association in Montreal. On April 27, 1896, Borden went to Charles Tupper's home for a dinner party. Tupper, who was about to succeed Mackenzie Bowell as prime minister, asked Borden to run for the federal electoral district of