The bicameral Court of Session is Scotland's highest court for civil cases. Cases are first heard in the Outer House and, if they are not resolved there, recommended to the Inner House. In 1810, as now, the Court of Session sat at Parliament Square in Edinburgh, but in 1810 the square was a work in progress. The equestrian statue of Charles II was in place, but neither the shell of the Library Block nor the severe neoclassical refronting of Parliament House was complete. On the inside, while the arched roof was made of oak, “its cross beams, struts, and straining posts, rising from carved stone grotesque corbels (brackets) so as to form a five-segmented plan,” had been in place for well over a century; there were only a few paintings hanging on the walls and some statuary on the sides, so the hall itself did not have the appearance of an art gallery, as it does today. Where today there is a central fireplace there was then a large stove. Windows on the southwest and east sides of the hall provided light, but the portion of the facade that had been put up made the place dark. The big stained-glass window of the south wall was more than fifty years in the future.

While the Inner House had its own rooms, the Outer House conducted business in the alcoves of Parliament Hall. Though the booksellers, toy shops, jewelers, and coffee shop that had also conducted business in the hall in the eighteenth century were gone by 1810, it was still a noisy, bustling place, with advocates conversing with each other and their clients and first-instance judges (the judges of the Outer House) holding court. As occasion demanded, the all-important macer would make himself visible to the people below. Sticking head and shoulders out of a window cut out from the east wall and framed by two of the oak beams that supported the high ceiling, he would, in his stentorian voice, call out the case numbers.

The atmosphere of the Inner House courtrooms stood in stark contrast to this liveliness.