At first he practised chiefly in chambers as an equity counsel, but as his practice grew he began to appear not only in the equity court, but in the courts of common law, mostly to argue questions connected with conveyancing and the transfer of real property.
Among his cases was the trial of Richard Francklin, a Fleet Street bookseller, on 3 December 1731, for publishing in The Craftsman of 2 January the letter from The Hague said to have been written by Lord Bolingbroke.