In the pursuit of his education Judge Curran attended a Jesuit school and St. Mary’s College at Montreal, where he entered upon a classical course. He afterward became a student in St. Joseph’s College at Ottawa and in 1891 the University of Ottawa conferred upon him the LL. D. degree. In the continuance of his education, he entered McGill University as a student in the law department and won his D. C. L. degree in 1862. It was in the spring of 1859 that he began preparation for the bar, reading at times under the direction of such distinguished lawyers as Bernard Devlin, Hon. T. J. J. Loranger and Andrew Robertson, K. C. While pursuing his classical courses he cultivated a taste for literature and oratory and in his student days developed the natural gifts that in course of time made him one of the foremost Canadian orators. It was also in his early manhood that he joined the Irish national movement and thus his life was taking shape along those lines which were to make him a power in moulding the history of province and country. The year following his graduation from McGill, or in 1863, he was called to the bar of Quebec. No dreary novitiate awaited him. Almost immediately his talents won him recognition and he gained prominence as one of the younger members of the profession, by the important part which he took in the conduct of a number of notable criminal cases, including the Shehan, Havern, Kehoe and Considine murder cases and the Dunbar, Brown, Kearney and T. F. O’Brien frauds. It is said that he had no superior in the conduct of election cases. He was successful in the Devlin-Ryan, Tansey-Malone and the James McShane-Loprairie contests and all these drew to him the attention and favorable comment of the profession. He was equally capable in the practice of civil law and was the legal representative of some of the largest contractors of the continent including men prominent in business in New York, Ottawa and Montreal. His legal counsel was sought by men of prominence again and again. Probably his last appearance as an advocate was when he represented the Dominion government in an arbitration with the province, the case being heard in the city of Quebec about 1894.