"Do you not have a heavy burden of justification to show authorisation under the constitution?" he asked the US solicitor-general, Donald Verrilli, who was defending the law.
"The whole-life tariff is against all principles of international law as it denies any possibility of reform of rehabilitation," says Bhatt Murphy's Simon Creighton, the solicitor representing the prisoners at the European court.
Tessa Gregory, a solicitor at Public Interest Lawyers who is acting on behalf on Birmingham students challenging the claim, described the university authority's actions as shameful and draconian.
He was a respected civil liberties solicitor and had successfully challenged the British government in a number of important human rights cases.
A solicitor from the Belfast firm, Darragh Mackin, said: "We think Amal's track record speaks for itself, as do all of the counsels' CVs in this case.
The SDLP accused Mr Adams of deploying the same argument as those who oppose an inquiry into allegations of security force collusion in the 1989 killing of solicitor Pat Finucane by loyalists.
In 2004, he and Menzies Campbell made the unusual decision to meet me, as a solicitor acting for Guantánamo detainees, to give me witness statements about a conversation they'd had with George W Bush on a visit by him to the UK.
Mr Maurice Shaffner, the county prosecuting solicitor, said that the accused man was not legally represented.
However, solicitor Andrew Bale said the dismissal of charges against his clients on Friday represented the latest in a growing array of cases that showed "the quality of police intelligence is not up to standard".
Hockey made the order after receiving advice from the government solicitor.
Her solicitor John Rogers remembers that the mother's chief worry was that the social services might find out and take away her baby.
