Sedgewick established a private practice in Halifax, and subsequently played an essential role in the establishment of the law school at Dalhousie in 1883. He was created a Dominion Queen's Counsel in 1881.
Beginning in the 1870s, Sedgewick became active in the Conservative Party of Canada. The connections thus established would serve him well, as his friend and former Halifax colleague John Sparrow David Thompson, who had become the federal Minister of Justice, appointed Sedgewick as Deputy Minister of Justice in February 1888. In this capacity, he played an important role in the establishment of the first national Criminal Code, which was enacted in 1892.[1] Thompson, who had by then become the Prime Minister of Canada, also appointed Sedgewick to the Supreme Court of Canada on 18 February 1893, a position he was to hold until his death in 1906. He was a member of the North British Society.