The picture of Thomas Kebell's law practice drawn in the previous chapters has frequently stressed his connections with his community–social and topographical. He has appeared the servant of Leicestershire folk in general, and the Hastings and their retinue in particular, as much as or more than a ‘gentleman of London’. Given the evidence, this is inevitable, but it distorts the picture. Local connections were the backbone of practice, but it was successful practice at Westminster which helped to bring local clients; Leicestershire people went to Kebell not simply because they knew him or some friend knew him, but because he was successful in the central royal courts. And what was true of practice will also be found to be true of the rewards of practice; Leicestershire connections enabled Thomas Kebell to set up as a squire, but his Westminster practice gave him the means to do so. Centre and locality each informed the other.

Anyone wanting to study the role of the lawyer in the central courts faces serious problems. Court records are uniformly silent upon judges and counsel and, except in equity, compress the actual suit into a few lines of a formulary. Some letters survive, occasionally a few bills of legal costs; cause papers and the miscellanea of litigation rarely. The only material preserved by the lawyers and the only material of any quantity at all is provided by the year books.