Mystery Fiction’s Greatest Lawyers

Undoubtedly the Godfather of all successful defense attorneys, Mason first yelled, “Is this relevant, your honour?” in the Los Angeles criminal court back in 1933.

The maverick Mason, a man always prepared to push the envelope of legality when it comes to getting a client acquitted, was created by Earle Stanley Gardner. Gardner had been a criminal lawyer in California for over 20 years before the Mason books catapulted him to literary stardom.

This allowed Gardner—according to his publisher at least—to move into a cabin in the mountains armed with a Dictaphone and became a full-time mystery writer.

Mason novels such as The Case of the Borrowed Brunette and The Case of the Lame Canary are fast-paced, smart, and filled with Golden Age Hollywood glamor (a high quotient of it supplied by Mason’s assistant and on-off girlfriend, Della Street).

The courtroom scenes in which the brilliant Mason flummoxes arrogant prosecutors and irritates stuffy judges are sharply observed and richly entertaining.

While Perry Mason drinks high-class cocktails, his British counterpart, the much scruffier but equally brilliant Horace Rumpole, prefers red wine and port.

Like Earl Stanley Gardner, Rumpole’s creator, John Mortimer, was a seasoned defense lawyer who worked on some of Britain’s most celebrated cases (Including defending punk rock band The Sex Pistols on an obscenity charge). His creation, Rumpole, defends the innocent and the guilty alike, whether they are wealthy bankers or penniless Cockney car thieves.

Mainly appearing in short stories—of which there are five collections—Rumpole likes to quote Shakespeare and Rudyard Kipling, and lives in a flat in Kensington with “She who must be obeyed” (his affectionate nickname for Mrs. Rumpole).

Mortimer draws great comedy from the fusty world of London’s main criminal court, the historic Old Bailey, and Rumpole is a good and amiable companion with a keen eye for human frailty.

As a lawyer, Bostonian George V. Higgins defended Black Panthers leader Eldridge Cleaver and one of the Watergate burglars. As a writer, he penned The Friends of Eddie Coyle, perhaps the greatest of all hardboiled crime novels.

He also created Jerry Kennedy, a cynical Massachusetts lawyer with a messy home life who struggles to preserve his own moral center while defending pimps, pushers, mobsters and run-of-the-mill scumbags.

The hard-drinking Kennedy makes his first appearance in Kennedy for the Defense, and appeared in three subsequent novels.

As always with Higgins, the dialogue is a delight and peppered with laugh-out-loud one liners, while Kennedy is an empathetic figure even when he’s behaving badly—which is frequently.

Another lawyer turned best-selling mystery writer, John Grisham created the fictional Ford County, Mississippi where his recurring protagonist, defense attorney Jake Brigance, practices.

Brigance makes his first appearance in A Time to Kill, defending an African-American on trial for murdering the men who raped his daughter. He also takes the lead in Sycamore Row, A Time for Mercy, and Sparring Partners.

While there are touches of Atticus Finch about Brigance, he’s a more conflicted and troubled character than Harper Lee’s creation. And while Grisham’s novels don’t shy away from tough issues, the writer’s quality as a story-teller is always at the forefront.

Scott Turow had worked as a prosecutor in the US Attorney’s Office in Chicago before he turned to writing thrillers. His in-depth knowledge of the law and courtroom procedure give a solid factual basis to the world of Rusty Sabich, a Midwestern prosecutor.

Sabich first appears in Presumed Innocent—one of the most gripping of all legal thrillers. In it, he is set the task of investigating the rape and murder of a colleague, only to find himself standing trial for the crime.

A convincing backstory of Rusty’s problematic relationship with his angry father and his unfulfilling marriage to a woman he has disappointed add depth to a narrative that rips along like a runaway train.

Sabich would appear in two more excellent, twisty legal mysteries: Innocent and Presumed Guilty.

Simon Michael is another lawyer turned best-selling author. His novels, generally set in the London underworld during the 1960s (a time when Rumpole’s creator, John Mortimer, was working in the Old Bailey), feature the unlikely legal figure of hulking Charles Holborne, a former heavyweight boxer and petty criminal from the East End of London who has turned his life around to become a barrister.

60s London is fertile ground for any mystery write—a potential toxic mix of rock stars and gangsters, swinging sexual politics, drugs, and traditional conservative police officers—and Michael makes the most of it in an engaging and atmospheric series that currently runs to a dozen titles.

Earnest and idealistic defense lawyer Paul Biegler made just one appearance in fiction, but the novel he appears in, 1958’s Anatomy of a Murder, has arguably shaped every courtroom drama since—both on the page and on the screen.

Written by Michigan Supreme Court Justice John D. Voelker using the pseudonym Robert Traver, Anatomy of a Murder sees Biegler defending an army officer accused of killing the bar owner he claims raped his wife. Mounting a defence of temporary insanity, Biegler works to clear his client despite an increasing feeling that the man is not quite as innocent as he appears.

Memorably filmed in 1959 with James Stewart as the diligent Biegler, Anatomy of a Murder is an all-time classic.