Joseph William McNamee

Joseph William McNamee was born in Las Vegas on August 14, 1935, the seventh and youngest child of Leo and Fran McNamee, and grew up in a city that then had fewer than 5,000 residents. The son, grandson and brother of prominent lawyers, he was the last member of his generation of the pioneering McNamee family. His grandfather, Frank Sr., founded the firm McNamee, McNamee and Rittenhouse in 1913, one of the first law firms in the city, and his father, Leo, and brother John both became partners in it. He shared the family name with a state Supreme Court justice, his uncle Frank.

After serving as valedictorian at Bellarmine College Preparatory School in San Jose, California, McNamee attended Loyola University in Los Angeles and then studied law at American University in Washington, D.C. He married Carol Morici, his high school sweetheart, in 1957, left school one class shy of graduation, and returned to Las Vegas, where he passed the bar examination to become a Nevada attorney - admitted to the Nevada bar on October 27, 1959. He also passed the bar examinations in Washington and California. He became a partner in the family law firm, following his grandfather, father and brother into the practice.

Beyond the law, McNamee added to the family name's standing in public and civic life. He served a single term as a Republican state assemblyman in 1963, during which, according to his family, he introduced the only legislation to raise taxes on gaming. He was one of five partners in the former Marina Hotel on the Strip, later purchased by Kirk Kerkorian to make room for the MGM Grand, and he co-founded the Silk Purse Ranch, a landmark for horse lovers in the Las Vegas Valley that at its peak boarded 63 horses across 110 acres. Remembered as a mover and shaker who preferred to remain out of the spotlight, Joseph William McNamee died at his home in Cambria, California, on December 6, 2003, at the age of 68.