Jack McGinley’s eyes shine as he explains why his love for being a trial lawyer endures.
“I can’t describe what it feels like to sit and wait for a jury to read a verdict, kind of like watching that field goal going through the posts,” McGinley says.
Little wonder that he uses a football analogy to describe it. Art Rooney, legendary founder of the Steelers, was his uncle, and McGinley’s family still owns a share of the team.
McGinley’s lived in Pittsburgh nearly all of his life, save four years as an undergraduate at St. Bonaventure University and a brief stint working at a Rooney family business near Philadelphia. He spent most of his law career at Grogan Graffam & McGinley, the firm he co-founded nearly 30 years ago.
In January, the 1961 Central Catholic grad accepted an offer to join Eckert Seamans Cherin & Mellott. It wasn’t easy to leave his firm, he says.
“A lot of law firm splits are acrimonious,” says McGinley. “Mine wasn’t.”
Rather, McGinley says, many of his old friends had left the firm. Fellow founding partner Steve Graffam had retired, and Frank Lucchino had gone to the bench. McGinley saw the opportunity to join Eckert Seamans, a national firm with more than 200 lawyers, as a way to expand his own practice and add the depth he needs to serve his clients, whose needs he says are growing increasingly complex.
McGinley is a casual golfer and fly fisherman, and confesses a passion for Irish poetry. The law, however, remains his first love.
“Deep down in my shoes, I remain the guy who likes to get up and say, ‘May it please the court.'” How to reach: www.escm.com
