'The law touches us but here and there, and now and then' : Edmund Burke, law, and legal theory

Edmund Burke’s training in, knowledge of, and appreciation for, law is generally recognised. Indeed, as RB McDowell has written, while Burke may, during short bouts of irritation, have impulsively expressed intense exasperation with lawyers, their practices, procedures and prejudices, [but he] nevertheless remained convinced that the law, with all its limitations, must be regarded with reverence and that lawyers, with all their faults, performed functions of the utmost value to the community.