In Memoriam: Max Daniel McGinn

Max Daniel McGinn

July 30, 1942 – April 15, 2025

Max Daniel “Dan” McGinn passed away peacefully at Well-Spring Retirement Community on April 15, 2025.  Dan was born and raised in Lexington, North Carolina, and was the eldest son of the late Max Terry McGinn and Ethel Peck McGinn.  He attended Lexington High School where he was president of his senior class and earned varsity letters in three sports.  A natural leader and a gifted athlete, he was the starting point guard on the LHS basketball team, starting quarterback on the football team, and ace pitcher for the baseball team.

After high school, Dan accepted an academic scholarship to Wake Forest University, where he graduated magna cum laude and was elected to membership in Phi Beta Kappa.  Wake Forest was also where he met his future wife, Judith McBee.  Dan and Judy were married on June 3, 1965, and she took a job teaching while he attended Wake Forest University School of Law on another academic scholarship.  He was Associate Editor of the Wake Forest Law Review and graduated second in his class.  Upon graduation, Dan began his legal career at the Winston-Salem, North Carolina, office of the National Labor Relations Board.

In 1968, Dan and Judy had their first child, Brian, and Dan joined the United States Navy where he served in the Judge Advocate General’s Corps stationed in Pensacola, Florida.  Upon completion of his service, the family moved to Greensboro, North Carolina, where Dan began a distinguished 50-year career with the Brooks Pierce law firm.  Shortly after moving to Greensboro, Dan and Judy had their second child, Tracie.

When Dan joined the Brooks firm, he had the good fortune to work under and be trained by his mentor, the late Thornton Brooks, who taught him a lot about employment litigation but even more about how to be a well-respected attorney.  Dan won many accolades in the legal community, consistently being ranked among the top labor/employment lawyers in the state.  He represented companies in well over a hundred labor/employment lawsuits in federal court, argued a dozen cases before the United States Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit, and appeared before the United States Supreme Court. 

Dan was a member of First Presbyterian Church of Greensboro and a member of the Greensboro Country Club.  He served as an executive committee member and legal counsel for the United Way of Greater Greensboro for over a decade.  He was an avid Wake Forest sports fan who had season tickets for football and basketball games for nearly 50 years, and he gave back to his alma mater as a member of the Deacon Club and by serving on the Law School Board of Visitors. 

Dan is survived by his wife of almost 60 years, Judy; his son, Brian McGinn (Angela McGinn) of Greensboro; his daughter Tracie Jurgensen (Erik Jurgensen) of McLean, Virginia; and his sister Linda Lancaster (Everette Lancaster), of Garner, North Carolina.  Dan is also survived by four wonderful grandchildren, Audrey McGinn, Max McGinn, Lucy Jurgensen, and Lola Jurgensen.

Dan will be remembered by family and friends as kind, generous, hardworking, steadfast and witty.  He loved his family above all, but also loved the LA Dodgers, his dogs Murphy and Bandit, Wake Forest University, country music, and dark chocolate.