Born in Paris, the son of Jean-André Barrot, and thus the brother of Odilon Barrot and Adolphe Barrot, Ferdinand Barrot pursued law studies and became an "avocat" under the Restoration. Following the Revolution of 1830 he served for a time as an assistant procurator at the civil tribunal of the département of the Seine, but quit the magistrature after some time to return to the bar, where he pleaded several politically charged cases, notably that of Colonel Vaudrey implicated in the attempted insurrection at Strasbourg fomented by prince Louis-Napoléon Bonaparte, in which he obtained acquittal, 18 January 1837. He pleaded also in the case of the republican activist Armand Barbès (1839).