Alameda County Biographies

GEORGE J. McDONOUGH

Transcribed by Kathy Sedler

This file is part of the California Genealogy & History Archives http://www.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~cagha/index.htm

 

	Actively connected with a profession which has important bearing upon the progress and 
stable prosperity of any section or community and one which has long been considered as 
conserving the public welfare by furthering the ends of justice and maintaining individual 
rights, George J. McDonough has won success as a lawyer, practicing before the bar of Oakland.
	He is one of California's native sons, his birth having occurred in Eureka on the 8th 
of February, 1879, his parents being John and Margaret McDonough. In the public schools he 
pursued his education until sixteen years of age, after which he matriculated at St. Mary's 
College in Oakland, graduating therefrom in 1902. His legal training was acquired at Hastings 
College of Law, which he attended for a year and eight months, and then, with wide general 
information and careful preparation, he was admitted to the bar of the supreme court. He did 
not at once, however, embark upon his professional career as a lawyer but accepted a position 
as instructor at the Sacred Heart College of San Francisco, which he capably and efficiently 
filled until April, 1906, when he resigned. Since that year he has been engaged in active 
practice in Oakland, making a specialty of criminal law, and his success in a professional way 
affords the best evidence of his capabilities in this line. He is a strong advocate with the 
jury and concise in his appeals before the court and he has won for himself most favorable 
criticism for the careful and systematic methods which he follows in the conduct of his cases.
	Mr. McDonough was married in San Francisco on the 14th of June, 1908, to Miss Syd 
Frances Reidy, and they are well known and popular in the social circles of Oakland. Mr. 
McDonough belongs to the Catholic church and his political views are in accord with the 
principles of the republican party. He is yet numbered among the younger generation of 
practitioners in this city but, possessing the qualities of an able lawyer, he has already 
established a good practice in the line of his specialty, his increasing reputation bringing 
him more and more into connection with litigation of an important and distinctively 
representative character.

Past & Present of Alameda County, California � Vol II, S. J. Clarke Publ. Co., 1914, p. 39