Western novels where a lawyer is the hero?

Cafe Society
1

I mean “western” here as in the genre involving cowboys, Indians, railroads, Colt .45s, etc., not in the lit-crit sense of the “Western canon.”

In the movie of The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance, the lawyer Ransom Stoddard could be called the hero, but it’s at least equally arguable that Tom Doniphan is the hero.* And I don’t know if it was a novel before it became a movie.

Is The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance an example of a Western where a lawyer is the hero? Are there any other examples.

*Doniphan is the title character, after all.

2

In Louis L’Amour’s SACKETT novels, at least one of the brothers is identified as a lawyer and former judge. I forget which one (Orin, possibly).

3

Not a novel, but the title character of the TV series Brisco County, Jr. is a lawyer turned wild west hero.

4

The TV show Sugarfoot starred Will Hutchens as a frontier lawyer.

5

Not a novel, but the title character in the TWO-GUN KID comic book was a lawyer from back East who maintained a Heroic Masked Rider secret identity in between wooing the local schoolmarm.

6

Orrin Sackett was a succesful politician and sheriff, but was he actually a lawyer? I don’t remember him being one, but I certainly haven’t read all the Sackett stories. The Sacketts were never my favorite L’Amour creation, anyway.

Tell Sackett read Blackstone’s Commentaries, but he was never admitted to the bar in any of the novels I read.

There are several other L’Amour stories where a lawyer is a secondary good guy.

7

There was Judge Roy Bean, of Langtry Texas.

He was a judge, and a justice of the peace, and he actually used a law book. He certainly did the actual duties of a lawyer- for the prosecution.

(…except, Judge Roy Bean was a real person, a true story, it really happened, and the story of Roy Bean is nonfiction not a novel.)

Stuart Lake wrote a ficitionalized screen play about Judge Roy Bean and turned into a movie with Gary Cooper called The Westerner.

8

The lawyer in True Grit is spoken of with hushed awe by several characters, but when he appears he seems to be a tiny, nebbishy guy.

This apocryphal sentencing transcript is sometimes attributed to Judge Roy Bean:

"Jose Manuel Miguel Xavier Gonzales, in a few short weeks it will be spring. The snows of winter will flee away, the ice will vanish, and the air will become soft and balmy. In short, Jose Manuel Miguel Xavier Gonzales, the annual miracle of the years will awaken and come to pass, but you won’t be there.

"The rivulet will run its soaring course to the sea, the timid desert flowers will put forth their tender shoots, the glorious valleys of this imperial domain will blossom as the rose. Still, you won’t be here to see.

"From every treetop some wild woods songster will carol his mating song, butterflies will sport in the sunshine, the busy bee will hum happy as it pursues its accustomed vocation, the gentle breeze will tease the tassels of the wild grasses, and all nature, Jose Manuel Miguel Xavier Gonzales, will be glad, but you. You won’t be here to enjoy it because I command the Sheriff or some other officer of the country to lead you out to some remote spot, swing you by the neck from a knotting bough of some sturdy oak, and let you hang until you are dead.

“And then, Jose Manuel Miguel Xavier Gonzales, I further command that such officer or officers retire quickly from your dangling corpse, that vultures may descend from the heavens upon your filthy body until nothing shall remain but bare, bleached bones of a cold-blooded, copper-colored, blood-thirsty, throat- cutting, chili-eating, sheep-herding, murdering son-of-a-bitch!”

9

Henry Fonda played Abe Lincoln in some movie, but, for the life of me, I can’t remember the name of it. Wait: “Young Mr. Lincoln.” Don’t know if it’s Western enough, tho.

Also, I seem to recall a series where Harold Gould was a lawyer in the Old West, but I can’t remember the name of it.

Best Wishes,
hh