At the Bar, Parker specialised in commercial cases and developed a courtroom style that tried to be fair to all the arguments and make a case with calmness. In 1945, he became the
Junior Counsel to the Treasury (Common Law) (also referred to as the "Treasury devil"), an appointment which normally led on to promotion to the High Court bench; however, when the invitation came from
Lord Jowitt in 1948, Parker thought it was too soon and that he had only just become useful to the Treasury Counsel, and therefore declined. He accepted the second invitation when it came in 1950. As he went straight from being Treasury Devil to the High Court, he never 'took silk' (that is to say, he was not a
King's Counsel): the Treasury Devil was never a 'silk'.
Judicial career As a judge, Parker found himself presiding over trials in areas of the law he was unfamiliar with. He claimed that the first summing up which he gave in a criminal trial was the first he had ever heard. However, by getting down to the work, he eventually mastered the job and by 1954 was promoted to the Court of Appeal. The more measured style of the appellate courts suited Parker more than the cut and thrust of the
King's Bench, and his ability to get to the important details of a case was assessed as good by those who appeared before him. He proved that he had reasonable political judgment in 1957 when heading a
tribunal over a minor political scandal connected with the setting of interest rates. However, Parker was popular among the profession as he secured improvements in judicial salaries and pensions. Parker was a mild reformer who supported
legal aid and tried to modernise some judicial procedures which he thought were antiquated, such as the assize court system. Like Goddard, Parker took an active part in
House of Lords debates. The most important speech he made was in debates during the passage of the War Damage Act 1965 which has the effect of retrospectively overturning the judicial decision of the House of Lords in
Burmah Oil Co. v Lord Advocate thereby depriving the plaintiff of an award of damages. Parker regarded this as an abhorrent idea in principle, but his view did not carry the day. He supported moves to abolish
the death penalty. In 1964 Parker instituted the first 'Sentencing conference' to try to get consistency. In the late 1960s he introduced the first formal training for Judges, and welcomed the formation of the
Law Commission. When
Lord Beeching headed a committee looking at court reform in 1971, Parker's memorandum was more radical than the committee's recommendations. ==Death==