Lawrence Edward Walsh was a distinguished lawyer who served as independent counsel during the investigation of the Iran-Contra affair that occurred in the preside cy of Ronald Reagan. Walsh, a former federal district court judge and past president of the American Bar Association (ABA), successfully prosecuted some key actors in the scandal but saw the convictions overturned on appeal. Moreover, President Bush pardoned officials involved in the affair as he left office in 1992, thereby preventing Walsh from proceeding with additional prosecutions.

Walsh was born on January 8, 1912 in Port Maitland, Nova Scotia. He graduated from Columbia University in 1932 and earned his law degree there in 1935. After his admission to the New York bar, he went to work for New York district attorney Thomas E. Dewey, who became nationally famous for his prosecution of organized crime figures. When Dewey was elected governor of New York in 1942, Walsh moved to Albany...