Tom King first met Douglas Linn when they were on opposite sides of a court case regarding a bus company in the late 1970s.

Despite initially meeting as adversaries, the two lawyers eventually would become friends and would work together on litigation throughout their careers in the “small legal community” of Butler County.

“We were colleagues to begin with and then friends over the course of 40 years,” said King, a partner with Dillon McCandless King Coulter & Graham LLP. “I came to know his family, and he came to know my family.”

Linn, 71, passed away Saturday after a year-and-a-half-long battle with cancer. His sister, Patti Coyle, said he is survived by his daughter, Ashley Linn, his stepdaughter, Julie Lewis, and his sisters Patti, Denise and Kelly.According to King, Linn was from the Philadelphia area, but moved around a lot with his family in his younger years. He attended Vanderbilt University, then attended law school at the University of Tulsa.Linn was a veteran of the Army National Guard, and served for many years as the solicitor of the Butler County General Authority, and worked with the Butler County Industrial Development Authority, King said.King said Linn took a liking to Butler when he was assigned a case in the area in either 1978 or 1979. He and would end up staying to practice law for more than 40 years. He had offices in Butler and Cranberry.King said Linn's dedication to his clients was a characteristic that made him stand out in the courtroom.“He had a brilliant legal mind,” King said. “He commanded great respect in the courtroom, and he was a very strong advocate for his clients.”King said that when Linn wasn't working, he would spend time in the Turks and Caicos Islands, where he kept a fishing boat.“He had a real love for travel,” he said. “He maintained a fishing boat down there, and he loved to spend a lot of time down there on his boat.”

Doug Linn