Former U.S. Solicitor General Ted Olson, who served two Republican presidents as one of the country’s best known conservative lawyers and successfully argued on behalf of same-sex marriage, died Wednesday.

WASHINGTON — Theodore B. Olson, the conservative attorney who helped win the right to gay marriage in California, died Wednesday at age 84. Olson was a good-spirited and gracious advocate who won landmark conservative rulings from the Supreme Court.

Theodore Olson, a conservative American lawyer who helped Republican George W. Bush secure the presidency in the legal battle over the 2000 U.S. election and went on to argue successfully on behalf of same-sex marriage,