 At the age of 21, he won election to the council of the Nationalist Party and won the Morven Nolan prize for political science in 1923.Admitted to the bar in 1925, Louat wrote for the "Sydney Morning Herald", was joint honorary secretary of the local United Association of Great Britain and France branch, and published "The Practice of the Supreme Court of New South Wales at Common Law" in 1928.Louat married divorcee Marian Julia Mackie ("née" Ellis-Oates) on 27 June 1931, although they divorced in 1937.