Henry Clay
Legal career

In November 1797, Clay relocated to Lexington, Kentucky, near where his parents and siblings resided. The Bluegrass region, with Lexington at its center, had quickly grown in the preceding decades but had only recently stopped being under the threat of Native American raids. Lexington was an established town that hosted Transylvania University, the first university west of the Appalachian Mountains. Having already passed the Virginia Bar, Clay quickly received a Kentucky license to practice law. After apprenticing himself to Kentucky attorneys such as George Nicholas, John Breckenridge, and James Brown, Clay established his own law practice, frequently working on debt collections and land disputes. Clay soon established a reputation for strong legal ability and courtroom oratory. In 1805, he was appointed to the faculty of Transylvania University where he taught, among others, future Kentucky Governor Robert P. Letcher and Robert Todd, the future father-in-law of Abraham Lincoln.

Clay's most notable client was Aaron Burr, who was indicted for treason in the Burr conspiracy. Clay and his law partner John Allen successfully defended Burr without a fee in 1807. Thomas Jefferson later convinced Clay that Burr had been guilty of the charges. Clay's legal practice was light after his election to Congress. In the 1823 case Green v. Biddle, Clay submitted the Supreme Court's first amicus curiae. However, he lost that case.
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