LAWCROSSING
THE LARGEST COLLECTION OF LEGAL JOBS ON EARTH
LAW STAR
www.lawcrossing.com
1. 800.973.1177
Gerry Spence: Author, The Making of a Country Lawyer [By Megan Rellahan] With courtroom victories against Kerr-McGee, Penthouse, and McDonald’s, among many others, Gerry Spence is a smalltown attorney at the very top of his game.
Born on January 8, 1929, in Laramie, WY,
in history. However, they did lose “Little
buddy, Jim Brown, and the two impulsively
Gerry Spence was welcomed into the world
Peggy,” Spence’s younger sister, who died
ventured out into the world. Working as
by his parents, Gerald and Esther. He spent
unexpectedly from cerebral meningitis.
sailors on a ship, Spence and Brown spent
his childhood learning what it meant to live
their free time drinking, smoking, and acting
off the earth. In early childhood, Spence
“My first memories were of a small angel,
like rebellious teens, free from their parents’
learned how to hunt animals for food. In
she barely three and I four, her eyes as
rules and regulations for the first time.
fact, he lost several of his “farm pets” when
luminous as fire, her happiness, it seemed
they became supper. Through Spence’s
an inexhaustible flame,” wrote Spence.
experiences growing up in the wilderness, he
However, when it was all said and done, both boys returned to Laramie, where they
discovered that “killing in the courtroom is
“I do not remember ever hearing her cry,
enrolled at the University of Wyoming. They
like killing in the mountains.”
but memories edit. And it was hard for me to
had hopes of becoming big-shot criminal
understand how a perfect angel could die,”
lawyers like the legendary G.R. McConnell—a
said Spence.
Wyoming attorney who defended a
“Like all killing,” explained Spence in his autobiography The Making of a Country
bootlegger and won by drinking the whiskey
Lawyer, “it carries with it the same ethical standards I saw my father live by when I was a child. One does not kill in the courtroom for the sheer sport of killing. One does not kill the opponent simply because one can. Only mad dogs, a few rogue wolves, and trophy hunters with piddling self-esteem, who line their walls with the innocent dead, kill for pleasure.”
Spence refers to Peggy as his first friend,
referred to by the court as “evidence” right in
and losing her had a permanent effect on his
front of the judge and jury.
“The killing, the blood on the hands, the
“Years later, as a lawyer,” explained Spence,
all the “bad” he had done, it did not come as
hands deep into the entrails of the witness on
“I viewed the insurance companies with
a surprise that his classmates failed to ask
the witness stand—the whole process known
their pay-on-death policies and the carnival
Spence to join their fraternity. In Spence’s
as the trial must not be a mere exercise in
crooks with their shell games and the Mafia
mind, he blamed himself for not fitting in.
killing. Instead, it should be the means by
chiefs with their protection scams as all
Without knowing that his destiny was to
which justice is nourished and by which the
kindred under the skin.”
become a highly prolific lawyer who boldly
entire family. With stories of death swarming around them, it is no wonder that when the
When Spence’s father signed a three-year
insurance men came knocking on the Spence
contract with a Bolivian company, his entire
family’s door, Gerald and Esther handed over
family moved and left Spence behind to
their entire savings. However, in the end, the
attend college. Still drinking and goofing
insurance they purchased barely covered a
off, Spence and Brown rented a room in a
week’s worth of hospital expenses.
basement and went to school. With feelings of intense dislike for himself mounting for
rights of ordinary people are, at last, fed,” wrote Spence.
defends the underdog, Spence felt as if he “They all peddled the same thing—the
were nothing.
placation of fear. All understand the During the Great Depression, the Spence
dominant motivations of the species—fear
Because he was not a frat boy, he “didn’t get
family did not lose all of their savings.
and greed. In the end, fear wins out.”
the girls,” according to Spence. However,
Nor did they succumb to unsanitary or
although it hurt back then, he realizes now
unsafe working conditions, which ended
After Spence graduated from high school,
the lives of many people during this time
he plotted to escape Wyoming with his best
PAGE
that it was a blessing in disguise.
continued on back