In Memoriam: Gary L. Bostwick

Gary L. Bostwick passed away after battling many serious ailments on December 6, 2025 in Medford, Oregon. He was surrounded by family members who played The Beatles’ “Let It Be” as he went. Gary was a brilliant media lawyer, and one of very few nationwide with extensive trial experience. His folksy charm and quick wit impressed clients, juries and colleagues. Gary was a true renaissance man—a man of warmth, principle and extraordinary depth, an Army officer, a Peace Corps volunteer, an automotive engineer, a poet, an athlete, a lawyer, a father, a grandfather, a mentor, and a friend. He is remembered affectionately, and will be missed tremendously.

Gary grew up in the small town of Casper, Wyoming. His father worked at an oil refinery, and Gary knew his way around horses. His first job was sweeping up in a barber shop. He and classmate Dick Cheney were the second base-shortstop combo for their high school baseball team. Gary went from his small town to the big city of Chicago, and graduated from Northwestern University with a degree in engineering.

After college, Gary served in the U.S. Army as an artillery officer. His first job in the private sector after college was as an engineer at Ford Motor Company, where he helped design the first Mustang, which quickly became one of Ford’s best selling cars. He quit his job at Ford after he heard John F. Kennedy deliver an inspiring speech about the newly-formed Peace Corps. Gary did two tours in the Peace Corps; first in Bolivia, and then he ran the mission in Panama. He was fluent in Spanish and in German, and lived with his family in Germany for a time, running a business that translated technical journals and manuals from English to German and vice versa. They summered at a house in Spain.

Always eager for a new challenge, Gary went to the University of California, Berkeley, where he received a J.D. and a masters degree in public policy. After graduating, he clerked for the Hon. Fred Cassibry, a federal judge in New Orleans. Not only did Gary learn about the law, but he also learned how to tell jokes with a Cajun accent, which he would do upon request (and very often spontaneously).

After his clerkship, Gary started his legal career at the Los Angeles law firm Manatt Phelps and Phillips. With years of real-life experience under his belt, he quickly showed his worth to colleagues and supervisors representing all manner of companies and celebrities including baseball great Steve Garvey, who—in gratitude for Gary’s hard work—gifted him terrific seats at Dodger Stadium that Gary kept for decades to follow.

After a few years at Manatt, Gary broke off on his own and ultimately partnered with noted civil rights lawyer Paul Hoffman, forming Bostwick & Hoffman. Gary represented Dr. Jeffrey MacDonald, and was a primary figure in a book about MacDonald written by famous journalist Janet Malcolm titled The Journalist and The Murderer. Years later, Gary defended Malcolm in a defamation a case involving one of her articles that went to the U.S. Supreme Court, Masson v. The New Yorker.

Around the turn of the century, Gary joined the Los Angeles office of Davis Wright Tremaine. While there, he litigated many cases defending the media, including a trial defending a Santa Barbara subsidiary of The New York Times Company. Gary suffered a leg ailment toward the end of trial, but, no matter, he put his leg up on the table, and kept the courtroom enthralled with his powerful closing argument.

Gary was recruited from DWT to join Sheppard Mullin Richter & Hampton as a founding pillar of its media and entertainment practice. While there, Gary, who became a certified appellate specialist, took another trip to the U.S. Supreme Court in the defamation case of Tory v. Cochran, defeating fellow noted Los Angeles trial attorney Johnnie Cochran.

After a few years, Gary left Sheppard and started the firm of Bostwick & Jassy with one of his mentees. The firm’s first new client was Thedore “Ted” Kaczynski. Yes, the Unabomber. The Ninth Circuit made the appointment to assist Kaczynski on a First Amendment issue. Gary defended many newspapers, television stations, and motion picture studios in defamation and privacy matters. He taught about media law, defamation and legal issues in journalism at UC Berkeley, USC, Loyola and Southwestern. He tried more than 70 cases and spoke on media bar panels, all while annually co-writing the Wyoming chapter of the MLRC’s book on libel defense. He proudly kept his Wyoming bar membership as a tie to home.

In 2013, Gary opened his own office and continued to fight vigorously for the rights of his clients, large and small. And, while still practicing law, he ran a bed and breakfast near the base of Mt. Shasta with his beloved wife Cindy Rosmann.

Gary was both a cowboy and a unicorn. He could carry on a conversation with anyone about nearly anything, and do it in three different languages (four, if you count the Cajun dialect). He could calculate exactly how to aim and deliver an artillery shell, but he would also write poetry decrying America’s military exploits in the Middle East. He was a man of dignity and principle. He would look a judge straight in the eye, and tell that judge they were simply wrong. He would go out of his way to help a new lawyer find their path. Gary left the world a better and more interesting place.