September 19, 2009
Attorney known for community work to receive award
By Denise MacLachlan
Herald staff
Dan
McVeigh, a partner in the Downey Brand law firm in Sacramento, will receive
the St. Thomas More Award for integrity in the practice of law, leadership
in the community and faithfulness to Gospel values. Luis Gris/Herald
photo
From the 18th floor conference room windows overlooking Capitol Mall at Downey Brand, the largest law firm in Sacramento, partner Dan McVeigh can see landmarks from his own life, deeply rooted in Sacramento.
There’s the Stanford Mansion, which housed the offices of the Stanford Home for Children, where he held his first job after graduating from UC Berkeley in 1972.
There’s the state Capitol, where his wife, Rebecca Baumann, works as a legislative aide to state Sen. Loni Hancock.
And there’s the Cathedral of the Blessed Sacrament, where McVeigh first saw Baumann in 1973. She was seated in the front row, and he didn’t have his mind entirely on his prayers. It’s where he will attend the Red Mass on Oct. 7, shortly before Bishop Jaime Soto presents him with the St. Thomas More Award for integrity in the practice of law, leadership in the community and faithfulness to Gospel values in his professional and private life.
For McVeigh, who holds a bachelor’s degree in rhetoric and a law degree from Hastings College of Law and has been involved in Sacramento community affairs for more than 35 years, integrity in private and professional life flows from his childhood formation as a Catholic and his practice of his faith as an adult.
“Catholic kids have their religion imbued into their identity,” he said. When they reach adulthood, Catholics and former Catholics approach life in similar ways, feeling an obligation to give back to community and treating people with genuine respect, he noted.
McVeigh was reared in an Irish Catholic family in San Francisco, graduating from St. Veronica School in South San Francisco and Junipero Serra High School in San Mateo. All four of his grandparents were Irish Catholic immigrants who arrived in the United States around the turn of the century. All of his siblings attended Catholic schools.
In his own life, community service has been a consistent motif, from his volunteering with community organizers in San Francisco’s Mission District during his college days to his serving on nonprofit boards in Sacramento. These include the Stanford Home for Children, the Sacramento YMCA, the Sacramento Library Foundation, the Rotary Club of Sacramento, and the Effort, a nonprofit that merged with Sacramento’s Family Services Agency, to provide health care services and counseling to people with addictions.
McVeigh also does his best to foster community at St. Anthony Parish in the Pocket area of Sacramento, where he and Baumann have been members for more than 20 years. The couple started a “Catholic conversation” group more than a decade ago, to bring people together over food and wine, to build community and to talk about Catholic issues.
Peggy Walrath, a fellow parishioner and member of McVeigh’s group, said the topics range from the personal, such as prayer, to the public: What ought to be the role of the church in politics? How do Catholics apply their faith in the workplace?
The conversations are an opportunity to engage in intellectual discussion with other active Catholics, Walrath said.
As an attorney, McVeigh is known as “a lawyer’s lawyer,” said attorney Tom Johnson, who is chair of the diocesan Red Mass committee which reviews nominations for the St. Thomas More Award.
McVeigh “handles complex civil litigation and he does it fairly, ethically, and with great judgment. He is regarded as a pillar in the legal community,” Johnson said. McVeigh also serves as a settlement conference judge on civil litigation for Sacramento County, which “speaks to his reputation for fairness and his ability to handle complex matters and find workable solutions,” Johnson added.
McVeigh’s specialty is employment law, representing managers and human resource groups in businesses. He enjoys learning about the business he represents, and he identifies with and advocates for his clients, but he practices law in accordance with his values, “which works well for my clients,” McVeigh said.
Richard Koppes, a permanent deacon serving St. Anthony Parish, agrees. Deacon Koppes, former general counsel for the California Public Employees’ Retirement System and now counsel to Jones Day law firm in San Francisco, specializes in issues of ethics and corporate governance.
“People want ethical, trustworthy legal help,” Deacon Koppes said. “For every Enron, there are vast numbers of good, values-based businesses that want legal help who will represent them fairly and justly.”
Deacon Koppes, who is also a member of the Catholic conversation group, said that his friend McVeigh practices the kind of ethical law that is consistent with his faith.
“Dan’s professional life is the same as the rest of his life,” he said.
Red Mass
When: Wednesday, Oct. 7 at 5 p.m. in the Cathedral of the Blessed Sacrament, Sacramento
Sponsor: Diocese of Sacramento
Celebrant and homilist: Bishop Jaime Soto
Who’s invited: Attorneys, judges, elected and appointed officials and all those working in the legal system or involved in the process of government in the five-county Sacramento region are invited to attend the Mass.
What it is: The Red Mass is the popular name for the Mass of the Holy Spirit, in which God’s blessings are invoked upon all those working in civil or canon law. The liturgy’s red vestment, symbolizing tongues of fire, gave the name to this 800-year-old Catholic tradition which gathers together all members of the legal community, Catholic and non-Catholic alike. In the United States, the Red Mass is traditionally celebrated the Sunday before the new Supreme Court session begins, which is always on the second Tuesday in October.
Organizing committee: Members of St. Thomas More Society of Sacramento, an independent organization of Catholic lawyers in the Sacramento area and an affiliate of the Sacramento County Bar Association, serve on the diocesan Red Mass committee, along with other Sacramento-area attorneys and judges, to nominate the recipient of the St. Thomas More Award and coordinate the Red Mass and St. Thomas More Award dinner.
Dinner event: Tickets for the St. Thomas More Award dinner following the Mass on Oct. 7 at the Sutter Club are $75 each. For reservations, call (916) 753-1300.
