page_title: Rufus Isaacs, 1st Marquess of Reading
section_title: Career at the bar
hierarchical_section_title: Rufus Isaacs, 1st Marquess of Reading / Career at the bar
caption_attribution_description: Men of the Day No.908: Caricature of Mr Rufus Isaacs KC MP. Caption reads: "Rufus"
context_page_description: Rufus Daniel Isaacs, 1st Marquess of Reading, GCB, GCSI, GCIE, GCVO, PC was a British Liberal politician and judge, who served as Lord Chief Justice of England, Viceroy of India, and Foreign Secretary, the last Liberal to hold that post. The second practising Jew to be a member of the British cabinet, Isaacs was the first Jew to be Lord Chief Justice, and the first, and as yet only, British Jew to be raised to a marquessate.
context_section_description: Isaacs was admitted as a student to the Middle Temple in 1885, and was called to the Bar in 1887. He set up his own chambers at 1 Garden Court, Temple, and was very successful; within five years he was able to repay his creditors, and after twenty years at the bar earned the enormous sum of £30,000 per year. He was appointed a Queen's Counsel in 1898, after only ten and half years at the junior bar.
  Isaacs mainly practised in the Commercial Court, with occasional appearance in the divorce court or at the Old Bailey. Among his famous cases were the defence of The Star against a charge of libel by Arthur Chamberlain (at the behest of his brother Joseph), the Taff Vale case (where he appeared for the union), the 1903 Bayliss v. Coleridge libel suit, the prosecution of the fraudster Whitaker Wright, the defence of Sir Edward Russell on a charge of criminal libel, and that of Robert Sievier on a charge on blackmail.
  As a barrister, Isaacs was a hard worker, rising early to prepare his cases, although he never worked after dinner. His advocacy was calm and forensic, and he was renowned for his style of cross-examination.
caption: Isaacs caricatured by Spy for Vanity Fair, 1904
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