 Within months of his admission to the bar , Benjamin argued his first case before the Supreme Court of Louisiana and won . Still , clients were slow to come in his first years in practice , and he had enough free time to compile and publish , with Thomas Slidell , the Digest of the Reported Decisions of the Superior Court of the Late Territory of Orleans and the Supreme Court of the State of Louisiana in 1834 , which required the analysis of 6 @,@ 000 cases . The book was an immediate success and helped launch Benjamin 's career . When Slidell published a revised edition in 1840 , he did so alone , as Benjamin was too busy trying cases to allow him to participate . 
