He was appointed a judge of the Court of Common Pleas (Ireland) in 1794, having been originally intended for the Court of Exchequer (Ireland). Though he is said to have owed his appointment to his friendship with John Fitzgibbon, 1st Earl of Clare, the Lord Chancellor of Ireland, he was highly regarded as a judge. William Norcott, the barrister and poet, in his 1805 poem "The Metropolis", praised him for his honesty and commonsense. He presided at a number of the trials resulting from the Irish Rebellion of 1798. After the failure of the Irish rebellion of 1803, he was one of the members of the Special Commission which was set up to try the rebels. He retired in 1806 and died in County Clare in 1814.