William Quinn

William P. Quinn, 91, an attorney who was an authority on railroad law in Philadelphia, died on April 30 at his home in West Chester.

Born to William A. Quinn and Margaret Mongan and raised in Scranton, Mr. Quinn won the American Legion's oratorical contest in 1944 when he was a senior at St. Paul's School. The scholarship paid for his college tuition at the University of Pennsylvania, where he earned a bachelor's degree. He later graduated from Penn law school.

Mr. Quinn began his legal career as a general attorney with the Reading Company in 1955. He would successfully defend the company's interests.

"The Baltimore & Ohio and the Chesapeake and Ohio were sister railroads and wanted to take over," said Joseph O'Malley, an attorney who also started his career at Reading. "Bill prevented the take-over. He also put a lot of effort into representing the Delaware & Hudson after Conrail was established. D & H was in threat of losing a lot of traffic. Bill fought to maintain those trackage rights."

"He was a real ace in my mind," said O'Malley. "When I started at Reading, everyone said, ‘You have to get to know Bill Quinn. He's wonderful.'"

Mr. Quinn later continued his transportation work in Center City law firms, including Rubin, Quinn, Moss & Patterson.

Eric Hocky, an attorney now with Clark Hill, said, "He became one of the first short line railroad lawyers. This was a niche practice before the era of niche practices."

"Bill was successful in the railroad practice because he knew the law so thoroughly, and was adept at applying it to the situation at hand. He was careful and thorough. And he had the ability to write clearly and persuasively

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both in the contracts he drafted and in the briefs that he wrote to the Interstate Commerce Commission and to the courts."

Mr. Hocky continued, "Bill was a "counselor" in the true sense of the word. Most of his relationships with his clients went beyond merely that of lawyer-client. Clients looked to Bill not just for what the law said they could do, but what they should do. They knew Bill always to be fair and honest. He told them what was right, even if it was not what they wanted to hear. He set a high standard for himself, his clients, his colleagues and the legal profession."

Mr. Quinn's son, William, would become an attorney with Morgan, Lewis & Bockius.

"My father's integrity, exceptionally sharp mind, and dedication to the craft of lawyering made a deep impression on me and inspired me to follow in his footsteps by becoming a lawyer myself.

I revered him as a man and a lawyer and aspired to be like him," he said.

James Frick, a former attorney for Reading and Amtrak, said, "Anything you say about Bill is just not enough. He was just wonderful as an attorney and friend."

Mr. Quinn and his wife, Katharine A. Curtin, who died last October, had seven children. They raised their family in Glenside and opened an ice cream parlor, Å La Mode, in Ocean City, New Jersey for their children to earn their way through college. "My father came to the shore on weekends and after working all week in his law practice, sometimes ended up busing tables at Å La Mode," said his daughter, Laura Wood, a former staff writer with The Inquirer and wife of Inquirer staff writer Anthony R. Wood.

Mr. Quinn and his wife were subscribers to the Philadelphia Orchestra for more than 40 years. They hosted a family of Vietnamese refugees in their home in the 1980s. They were tutors at St. Gabriel's Hall in Audubon and volunteered for a local food bank.

They drove across the country together and traveled extensively in Europe and Asia. Their grandson, Sean Wood, said, "My grandparents set out to see the world and they largely succeeded. When we traveled with them, it was us trying to keep up with them rather than the other way around."

In addition to his son and daughter, Mr. Quinn is survived by his five other daughters, Clare, Ellen, Brenna, Maureen and Julia, as well as 13 grandchildren.

A visitation will be held at St. Norbert's Church, 50 Leopard Rd., Paoli on Saturday, May 12 at 9:00 a.m., followed by a Funeral Mass at 10:30 a.m.

Memorial contributions may be made to Daylesford Abbey (attn: Fr. John Joseph Novielli, Director of Development), 220 S. Valley Road, Paoli, PA 19301.