Keeping a Civil Tongue

Bill McCurine fell in love at first sight—twice in the same day. While he was driving down I-5 in 1969, his eyes lit on Mission Bay. He knew this was where he would live. “I instantly fell in love with the city,” McCurine says. An hour and a half after that, he met the woman he would marry, Dana. What a day!

Thirty-two years later, McCurine practices law in a downtown high-rise, a long way from his hometown Chicago. Last year, he left a partnership with Gray Cary after 24 years to join Solomon Ward Seidenwurm & Smith as a civil trial lawyer, focusing on business disputes and problems with manufactured products.

“I love Gray Cary and have good friends there,” McCurine says. “But Solomon Ward gave me a wonderful opportunity to work with highly ethical and very talented lawyers in a smaller working environment more compatible with my civil trial practice.”

His interest in the legal world developed after graduating from Dartmouth College with a degree in political science. “I wanted something intellectually challenging that could provide a practical help to people,” McCurine says. He made his way to Harvard Law School and graduated in 1971.

McCurine says his hope is for civility and courtesy among San Diego’s law professionals—“for lawyers to deal with each other with an attitude of professional courtesy and integrity, seeking not a win but to operate in a way that brings honor to the system,” he says, “and in a way that makes the public have confidence that [attorneys] are not just about winning, but proper fact-finding without the nastiness and the silly tricks you sometimes see portrayed on television.”

In addition to winning some impressive court cases, McCurine is the recipient of numerous honors, including the Thurgood Marshall Award from San Diego’s Earl B. Gilliam Bar Association and the Dr. Garter Whitson Award for academic and cultural excellence from the National Alliance of Black School Educators.

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