CHARLESTON, W.Va. (AP) — A personal injury lawyer who had served as legal counsel to the news outlets including the Charleston Gazette-Mail has died in an interstate crash.
An Interstate 79 crash Thursday killed Sean McGinley near the Frametown exit in Braxton County, according to West Virginia state police Capt. Shallon R. Oglesby. He was returning from a hearing in Morgantown. He was 55.
McGinley was a partner at DiPiero Simmons McGinley & Bastress PLLC, he was traveling to Charleston from a hearing in Morgantown before he died, his law partner Lonnie Simmons said.
“Sean was a brilliant lawyer,” law partner Tim DiPiero told the Gazette-Mail. “Just amazingly talented. Had a keen sense of right and wrong and seeking justice.
Along with being a longtime respected personal injury lawyer, he worked with many media companies on cases regarding the First Amendment and other issues.
Doug Reynolds, managing partner of HD Media, which publishes the Gazette-Mail and the Herald-Dispatch, called his death devastating.
“His long association with the Charleston Gazette-Mail was based not only on his great skill as a lawyer but on the friendship he formed with all those with whom he worked, not only the leadership of our company but also many of our journalists now and over the years,” Reynolds said.
McGinley is survived by his wife and two sons.
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