He once defended a golfer accused of beating a goose to death with his putter on the 17th hole at the Congressional Country Club in Maryland. (The golfer, a doctor, insisted it was a mercy killing: The goose, he said, was in agony after being struck by his approach shot.) Mr. Shaffer advertised, “Lawyer — Cheap Will Do My Best.”

Charles Norman Shaffer Jr., the grandson of a seamstress from Hell’s Kitchen in Manhattan, was born in Westchester County, N.Y., on June 8, 1932. His father was a lawyer. His mother, the former Lucy White, worked at home.

He graduated from Fordham College and Fordham University School of Law. His marriage to Diana Dolan ended in divorce. In addition to Ms. Randolph, he is survived by his companion, Christine M. Pulford; his daughters, Monica Karo, Leslie M. Shaffer and Camille Farnan; a son, C. Norman Shaffer; and nine grandchildren.

After law school, Mr. Shaffer was an assistant United States attorney in the Southern District of New York and served on the staff of the Warren Commission, which investigated the assassination of President John F. Kennedy. He opened a private practice after the Hoffa prosecution.

When he hired Mr. Shaffer, Mr. Dean had broken ranks with the White House, telling Nixon that the Watergate cover-up was “a cancer on the presidency.”

Mr. Shaffer, while no stranger to politics — he was a Kennedy Democrat — had never visited the White House and knew Mr. Dean only from a duck-hunting expedition to Maryland’s Eastern Shore. But he moved quickly to devise a strategy.

“I didn’t know what to do or how to do it,” Mr. Dean said in the interview.

Mr. Shaffer insisted that Mr. Dean testify before the Senate only if he was granted limited immunity from criminal charges. But the special prosecutor insisted on holding him accountable for the cover-up. Mr. Shaffer argued that any criminal charges could be successfully challenged, Mr. Dean said, “but I wanted to get it over with and be responsible for my conduct.”