Hugh McGough Running for District Judge in East End

Hugh McGough is continuing his career-long focus of resolving conflict and preserving civil rights with a run for district magistrate in the East End.

A lawyer who got his start representing people with HIV/AIDS during the height of the epidemic, McGough laid the foundation of his career helping a community of people whose civil rights were quickly diminished.

“I was very motivated to go to law school because of the AIDS epidemic,” McGough said. “How a whole class of people had been out on the outside of the law in such rapid fashion. The public health epidemic was bewildering and people didn’t know what the cause or cure was – people were stripped of so many of their rights – not to mention their dignity.”

McGough, 55, of Shadyside is running for the district magistrate position of District Judge Nathan Firestone in the East End. McGough said the current judge is required to retire at the age of 70, which is a law for all who hold the position. The jurisdiction covers the neighborhoods of Park Place, Point Breeze, Regent Square, Shadyside, Squirrel Hill and Swisshelm Park.

“I want to continue a tradition of caring, smart and competent judicial service that Judge Firestone and his predecessor, Bob Tucker, provided to people in the East End,” McGough said. “Both of them are attorneys of considerable reputation who have brought dignity and partiality and ethical standard to their work that I am committed to continuing.”

McGough earned his bachelor’s degree in English from Columbia College in New York City as he began his first career as a news reporter. After graduating in 1978, he moved to West Virginia where he became a reporter for the Wheeling-Intelligencer.

In 1982, he earned a master’s degree from the Medill School of Journalism at Northwestern University in Chicago. After returning to Pittsburgh, McGough then spent 10 years as a TV news producer at WPXI, then later at KDKA-TV.

When the AIDS epidemic hit in the late ‘80s and early ‘90s, McGough lost several personal friends to the disease. As he witnessed the injustices AIDS patients faced, he decided to go to law school while working for KDKA. At that time, he also became more involved with the

McGough graduated from law school at the University of Pittsburgh in 1992.

“I have reflected on that time because I was quite active there with the volunteer response with the AIDS epidemic and served on the PATF legal committee in the late ‘80s,” McGough said. “It served counsel to people with AIDS and their families.”

Now the owner of the practice Hugh McGough Attorney at Law downtown, he has a long resume of community involvement in both work and life. McGough served as the assistant solicitor and labor relations manager for the City of Pittsburgh from 1998 to 2007 after getting his start in employment and labor issues at the firm of Meyer, Unkovic & Scott, LLP.

“My major work during that period was serving to bring the Pittsburgh Bureau of Police into compliance with the consent decree imposed by the U.S. Justice Department, which was new when I arrived there in 1998,” he said. “It required that the city address allegations of police misconduct and violations of civil rights through alleged patterns of racial profiling and excessive force.”

McGough’s work included many policy changes that resulted from the consent decree, making sure the allegations did not continue.

Barbara Parees of Regent Square, former director of personnel for the City of Pittsburgh during Mayor Tom Murphy’s administration, said she worked with McGough and always felt she could trust his counsel.

“He is very thoughtful, he is a really good listener and takes his time with decision-making,” Parees said. “When I learned about his desire to run for judge, I thought he has a really great combination of skills along with his character and sense of humor.”

In 2007, he joined the Thieman and Ward practice of law to become the third attorney. Fred Thieman of Edgewood left the practice later and now is the head of the Buhl Foundation. Since Jan. 15, McGough has practiced on his own as the other partner, Bill Ward, left to become the chief of staff for Gov. Tom Corbett.

With experience on various boards throughout the city, along with his work as an attorney at the district judge’s courtroom in the East End, McGough said he is prepared to hear cases and determine the fair solutions needed in each case.

“Many people in the East End know that I have represented a lot of juveniles who have ended up on the wrong side of the law over the years,” he said. “That includes drug and alcohol, graffiti and some criminal offenses where I have been on the negotiation and the resolution of very serious charges that have been resolved in creative and constructive ways, both for the victims of the offense and constructive for the young person who has been accused in the crime.”

Through alternative dispositions, people can achieve more with young people rather than convicting them and processing them through the criminal justices system, he said.

“I bring first-hand experience of working with young people -- from graffiti artists to G20 protestors and the whole range of drug and alcohol related crimes,” McGough said.

He also has a professional mediation practice and serves on the U.S. District court mediation panel. McGough’s partner, Kris Rust, is the campaign manager and also works as a music teacher at Franklin Regional High School in Murrysville.

For more information visit http://www.mcgough4judge.com/.