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Lawyers and Legal Culture in British North America: Beamish Murdoch of Halifax
2011 
by Philip Girard, Professor, Schulich School of Law, Dalhousie University. Published with University of Toronto Press, 2011.
Well known to Osgoode Society readers as the author of an award winning biography of Bora Laskin, Philip Girard’s Lawyers and Legal Culture in British North America: Beamish Murdoch of Halifax is much more than a biography of Nova Scotia’s best known nineteenth century lawyer and legal author. It is also a first class account of an everyday lawyers’ practice in the first half of the nineteenth century, and has a great deal to say about the British North American legal profession and legal culture. Girard places Murdoch and the legal profession in one colony in the broader context of what we know about the international history of the legal profession at the time, and also draws interesting links between Murdoch’s legal practice and legal ideas and the politics of the period, especially arguments over responsible government.
Related Topics
Contents
Contents
FOREWORD ix
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS xi
1 Introduction 3
2 Antecedents 12
3 Apprenticeship 25
4 The Legal Profession in Nova Scotia: Organization and
Mobility 46
5 The Making of a Colonial Lawyer, 1822-7 75
6 The Maturing of a Colonial Lawyer, 1828-50 96
7 The Politics of a Colonial Lawyer: Murdoch, Howe, and
Responsible Government 111
8 Law and Politics in the Colonial City: Murdoch as Recorder of
Halifax, 1850-60 134
9 Law, Identity, and Improvement: Murdoch as Cultural
Producer 152
10 Epilogue 183
11 Conclusion 192
APPENDIX 207
NOTES 209
INDEX 275
Awards
- Clio Award, Regional History (2012)
Reviews
Philip Girard uses the story of a single lawyer, Bamish Murdoch, to illustrate the changes in legal culture in Halifax over the course of half a century…. Girard uses detailed records from Murdoch’s practice and his writings to focus on Murdoch as a legal professional, contributor to intellectual and cultural life, and economic actor…. Girard’s book illustrates the importance of the stories of ordinary individuals in understanding the wider impact and workings of the law. Lori Chambers, Acadiensis, Vol 41, 2012, pp. 249-250.
[A]n important and impressive addition to the burgeoning field of Canadian legal history, written by one of its most distinguished practitioners. The book examines the lengthy and multi-faceted career of the nineteenth-century Halifax lawyer, politician and writer Beamish Murdoch …. Girard’s expansive approach to legal history and his use of a legal culture framework …. shows very well that law generally and lawyers in particular had powerful social and cultural roles both inside and outside the courtroom. Bradley Miller, Histoire Sociale/Social History, Vol 45, 2012
Ralph Stewart, Canadian Journal of Law and Society, Vol 28, 2013, pp. 111-113
Reference and Research Book News, Vol 27, February 2012.
