Gerry Spence: Author, The Making of a Country Lawyer

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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

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that it was a blessing in disguise.

continued on back


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