His legal stuff was all thoroughly researched. There were/are some strange laws out there!

It's been long enough since my dissertation, but I'm pretty sure it's Collins who trained as a barrister but never practiced. And Dickens was a court reporter and Trollope was the son of a lawyer of some sort and did serious detailed research even though he wasn't one himself, so yes, I'm sure it *was* Collins who'd actually read law.