William Eugene Gagen, Jr.
July 3, 1943-Sept. 17, 2026
Danville, California
William Eugene Gagen, Jr., a beloved father, grandfather, and husband and one of the San Francisco Bay Area’s most respected trial lawyers, died on the afternoon of September 17, 2026, at the age of 83. After two weeks in Hospice care, Bill died peacefully at home in the company of his wife and three sons.
Bill Gagen had deep roots in Northern California. His Swiss-Italian great-grandparents were dairy farmers in Marin County, in what is now Sleepy Hollow. Another great-grandfather, from Donegal, Ireland, was a saddle and harness maker in San Rafael, Ca. On his dad’s side, his grandparents from Westmeath, Ireland settled in Stockton, Ca.
"Billy" Gagen was born in the gold rush town of Sonora, Ca, population 2,300, to Madeline and William Gagen Sr, on July 3, 1943. His mother was a concert pianist from San Rafael, who taught music lessons, first out of their Sonora home, and then at the grammar schools in Jamestown and then Columbia, Ca. Madeline’s classroom students remember her as a strict disciplinarian. William Gagen Sr., a talented baseball player from Stockton, worked for the telephone company, which had recruited him in part to play on their company baseball team.
The Gagen family lived upstairs in the home of Fred and Edna Leighton, an older couple who never had children of their own. Billy became like a grandson to the Leightons, and he grew up to idolize Fred, a cattleman and backcountry pioneer. In the early 1920’s, Fred built a permanent backcountry camp at Yellowhammer Lake in the heart of Emigrant Wilderness. Every summer, Fred would take his dozen horses to Yellowhammer and use it as a base of operations from which he dammed the surrounding streams to create permanent fishing lakes. On summer break from his sophomore year of college, Bill made his first of what would be many journeys to Yellowhammer, and it quickly became his favorite place on earth.
Bill went to grammar school in Sonora. In junior high he spent one school year mostly bed-ridden from rheumatic fever. After recovering, he left Sonora for boarding school at Bellarmine College Preparatory in San Jose, Ca. Early on, one of the Jesuit priests encouraged Bill to join the speech and debate team. He quickly found his calling in public speaking and went on to compete in several statewide final competitions. His specialty was impromptu speeches but it was in the category of radio broadcasting that he won a national title.
At Georgetown University, Bill completed three years in the ROTC program and served on the student council his senior year in 1965. That same year he boarded the “freedom train” from Washington D.C. to Alabama, where he participated in the landmark Selma march to Montgomery. After marching 54 miles over several days past Alabama National Guardsmen with bayonets sneering slurs, Bill witnessed Martin Luther King Jr. 's “How Long, Not Long” speech at the state capitol in Montgomery.
Following his graduation from Georgetown, Bill spent the summer in Niger with Operation Crossroads Africa, where he helped to build a community center with fellow volunteers. Upon his return, he started at Boalt Hall law school at U.C. Berkeley where he met his soon-to-be wife, Marianne McDaniel, who was a sophomore. They married in Berkeley on April 12, 1969. Later that year, immediately after taking the bar exam, Bill went on active duty with the U.S. Army. Although it was the height of the Vietnam War, Bill was mercifully stationed at Fort Benjamin Harris in Indianapolis where he was assigned to teach public speaking to military officers.
Upon completing his military assignment, Bill and Marianne returned to the East Bay Area, where Bill began his legal career as a Deputy District Attorney in Contra Costa County. He quickly established himself as a gifted trial attorney. After only 18 months in the role, he prosecuted around ten felony cases–an unusually high number for a young attorney.
He then joined the Danville practice of Edward Merrill, the firm that became Gagen McCoy, where he went on to become “one of the best-known criminal defense lawyers in Northern California,” in the words of The San Ramon Valley Times. Over five decades, he took on some of the most closely watched cases in California, guided by the conviction that everyone deserves a fair trial and a good lawyer. While he became best known for several high-profile cases (Chowchilla, Symbionese Liberation Army, Bradley Page), nearly a third of his clients were adolescents, desperate for a second chance after making a bad decision.
Colleagues across the legal system knew Bill as a straight-shooter who championed the respect and good will he believed lawyers owed one another. He was elected Fellow of the prestigious American College of Trial Lawyers, and was named a San Francisco Chronicle Top 25 attorney, and a Top 100 Attorney by California Super Lawyer. He served as president of both the Contra Costa County Bar Association and the Alameda-Contra Costa Trial Lawyers’ Association. For two decades he taught evidence, trial practice, and criminal law as an adjunct professor at John F. Kennedy University College of Law, where he served as vice chair. He co-authored California Criminal Discovery and contributed to the CEB (Continuing Education of the Bar) practice guides.
Bill gave generously to his community. He served as president of the Board of Trustees of De La Salle High School, as well as on the boards of the Danville Fire Protection District, Diablo Bank, the Eugene O’Neill Foundation, and the Boalt Hall Alumni Association. He was a generous supporter of the Bear Valley Music Festival, as well as many charitable causes close to his heart.
In 2020, Bill suffered a major stroke that severely impacted his mobility and speech. In the aftermath, Bill fought hard to regain the ability to walk and to speak clearly. During the six difficult years that followed his stroke, he was cared for by many incredible caregivers, and was sustained by the outreach and visits from his amazing network of dear friends and colleagues.
Above all, Bill will be remembered by family and friends as the ultimate people-person. He greeted everyone with a warm smile and was capable of endless small talk with just about anyone he encountered. Bill was extremely funny; he had a big laugh and a quick wit. He made friends easily and thrived in the company of others. He was everyone’s first choice to be the MC of any event being quite the gifted raconteur. Bill loved a good party, especially if Rob Roys were on offer. He was a loyal friend, and a loving father and husband, who was fiercely proud of his sons. He was “Babu”, the Swahili word for grandfather, to his four grandchildren.
Bill and Marianne loved to travel and took their family on many international adventures including Botswana, the Galapagos Islands, Indonesia, the former Soviet Union and Venezuela just to name a few. But perhaps his favorite place, outside of Yellowhammer, was high in the Sierra Nevada Mountains on the deck of his cabin in Bear Valley, Ca, especially in late summer during the annual Bear Valley Music Festival.
He is survived by his wife of 57 years, Marianne; his three sons, Daniel (Paul), Neil (Betty), and Patrick (Courtney), grandchildren, Madeline, William, Catherine and Porter, and beloved relatives Barbara McDaniel, Joanne Dale, Erica Inverso and Andrew Hahn.
Tags: veteran, teacher/educator