DiPiero Simmons McGinley & Bastress, PLLC, is proud to announce that Lonnie Simmons has been presented with the 2025 Stanley E. Preiser Member of the Year Award.

This award is presented annually and is named in honor of Stanley Preiser, who founded the West Virginia Association for Justice (WVAJ) in 1959. In 2018, Tim DiPiero was also presented with this prestigious award.

The WVAJ represents nearly 500 attorneys who practice in West Virginia and surrounding states. They are committed to providing West Virginians with quality legal representation, and that has been the guiding principle of Lonnie Simmons’ illustrious legal career.

Throughout his career, Mr. Simmons has been dedicated to finding justice for his clients, including many who were the victims of police misconduct and civil rights violations.

How do you find the right lawyer for you? That was the question posed by Forbes Magazine as they put together the inaugural list of America’s Best-In-State Lawyers. Forbes examined the attorneys through a rigorous and multi-stage research process that led to evaluating thousands of candidates.

The team at DiPiero Simmons McGinley & Bastress is proud to announce that one of our dedicated partners, Robert Bastress, was recognized by Forbes as a representative of exceptional legal counsel.

The editors at Forbes cited the formula lawyers apply for building a strong practice: “Build trust with clients. Prove reliability with colleagues. Gain respect and credibility from arbiters. Keep learning. Do great work.”

Robert Bastress embraces and excels in all of those qualities.

DiPiero Simmons McGinley & Bastress, PLLC (DSMB) is committed to advocating for wronged West Virginians in Charleston and elsewhere throughout “The Mountain State.” This commitment is evident in our recent filing of appellate briefs in a sexual assault, public transparency matter involving West Virginia University, and judicial ethics cases on behalf of clients harmed. These recent appellate cases filed by DSMB are representative of a small handful of cases that our experienced attorneys handle. Our lawyers offer free consultations to evaluate whether we, too, can help you.

June 3rd, 2022 was the first anniversary of Sean McGinley’s death. A Mass was held in his honor at Blessed Sacrament in South Charleston.

We remember our law partner and good friend, Sean McGinley, who died last year ago in a terrible car collision. Sean was an excellent attorney and a tremendous asset to our firm. His death left a huge void in our office. We miss his legal expertise, his management skills, his companionship and certainly his great laugh and sense of humor.

More importantly, Sean was a wonderful family man. We hope that Sean’s joy for living and the exemplary life he led will continue to inspire and comfort his wife, sons, parents, sister, and their extended family as they try to cope with his shocking death and his absence from their everyday lives.

Sean McGinley died on June 3, 2021. Take one look in his office and you will see what Sean valued most in life—his wife Ana and their two sons Liam and Colin. Photos of their smiling faces are everywhere. Sean was a devoted family man who balanced his role as a husband, father, part-time coach, chauffeur, and fisherman while also being a passionate, intelligent, and successful advocate for his clients. We will always remember Sean’s great laugh, keen intellect, calming presence, and dry sense of humor. While we mourn his untimely and tragic death, we celebrate the way he lived his life and we will remember all of the good times we had with him.

The law firm wishes to thank everyone for the supportive calls, emails, texts, Facebook messages, and walk-ins. The show of support from the legal community is a true testament to the man Sean was.

At DiPiero Simmons McGinley & Bastress, PLLC, we pride ourselves on doing what we can to boost our local and nationwide communities. As part of that dedication, we understand the importance of education and how crucial it is for aspiring students and professionals to receive a college degree. We decided to start a scholarship in 2018 that was specifically geared toward first-year college students. The Fall 2020 submission period just came to a close.

We were humbled by the amount of applications we received as well as the overall quality of every essay. The essays were fantastic and we enjoyed reading them! We’d like to thank everyone who applied.

We’re pleased to announce we’ve chosen a winner.

Congratulations to Celine Moubayed of California!

Celine is attending UC Hastings College of the Law.