Influential lawyer who backed four sitting Pa. top court justices
Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
William R. Caroselli, a prominent and politically influential attorney, grew up in North Braddock on a hill overlooking the Edgar Thomson steel mill.
The son of a plumber, he played football as a 160pound offensive guard on the Scott High School football team.That athletic ability helped him win a football scholarship in 1959 to Brown, an Ivy League school in Rhode Island.
“You can imagine how that would change your view of the world,” said Duquesne University law professor Joseph Sabino Mistick of Squirrel Hill. “It was a life-changing opportunity.”
After graduating from Brown in 1963, Mr. Caroselli earned his law degree from Dickinson School of Law in 1966. That same year, he began clerking for the famed McArdle law firm, where he met his friend and future law partner, Ed Beachler of Squirrel Hill. The two men started their own firm in 1972.
Mr. Caroselli, who retired from practicing law in January 2017, suffered a heart attack Thursday and died at his Woodland Road home in Squirrel Hill. He was 76.
Active in nearly every legal organization, including the International Academy of Trial Lawyers, Mr. Caroselli used his abilities as an advocate to raise money for political candidates. He contributed to and worked for the statewide election campaigns of four current Pennsylvania Supreme Court justices -— Christine Donohue, Debra Todd, David Wecht and Kevin Dougherty.
He also hosted fund-raisers at his home for Democratic candidates including the late Gov. Bob Casey, U.S. Sen. Bob Casey and former U.S. Sens. Joseph Biden and Harry Reid.
“He was brilliant. He was a lawyer who could take over a room. He was the man to see. He was fun-loving and always looking for a laugh,” said Mr. Beachler. “He was a great friend and a great partner.”
Allegheny County Common Pleas Judge Joseph James, now a senior judge, watched Mr. Caroselli try cases in his courtroom.
“He was well prepared. You could tell he knew exactly what he wanted to ask. He was very persuasive in his closing arguments,” Judge James said.
At his 50th class reunion in 2013, Mr. Caroselli was thrilled when he was asked to lead his Brown classmates plus that year’s graduating class on a parade through campus and Providence, said his widow, Dusty Elias Kirk.
Ms. Kirk met her future husband in 1980 while attending a legal conference at Seven Springs, a resort in Champion, Pa.
“I was right out of law school when we met. Twenty-four years later, we got married,” Ms. Kirk said. The couple, who wed in 2004, enjoyed trips to Anguilla and St. Bart’s, Spain, London and Paris. In 2013, they took their entire family to Italy, where they rented a villa.
Beneath his tailored Larrimor’s suits, colorful ties and matching pocket squares, Mr. Caroselli remained an advocate for and friend of the working class.
“Bill had a feel for what the average person did,” said his longtime friend and colleague, Attorney Charles E. Evans.
“He didn’t like to see people get kicked around. That’s why he and I had such a good bond. It’s easy to forget and move on. It’s a very admirable trait to never forget that everybody belongs. He could rub elbows with the socalled elite but not get too carried away with it,” Mr. Evans added.
An avid art collector, Mr. Caroselli bought the work of Pittsburgh and Pennsylvania artists, including Robert Qualters, Thaddeus Mosley, Jane Haskell, Syl Damianos and Aaron Gorson, whose riverfront scenes of Pittsburgh’s fiery steel mills at night probably reminded him of his youth.
Besides his widow, Mr. Caroselli is survived by two sons, Clay Caroselli of Upper St. Clair and David Kirk of Princeton, N.J., and two daughters; Alyssa Caroselli of Washington, D.C. and Jeannie Kirk of Squirrel Hill. He had one granddaughter, Avery Park. Mr. Caroselli’s first wife, Glenn deZalduondo, died in 1984. A second marriage to Carol McCaw ended in divorce.
Friends will be received at John A. Freyvogel Sons, Inc., 4900 Centre Ave. at Devonshire Street in Oakland on Monday from 1 to 4 and 6 to 8 p.m. A memorial service will be held Tuesday in the chapel of Chatham University at 2 p.m. Donations in lieu of flowers may be made to: The William R. Caroselli and Dusty Elias Kirk Scholarship, care of Penn State’s Dickinson Law School, 150 S. College St., Carlisle, Pa.. or Brown Annual Fund, Box 1877, Providence, R.I. 02912.