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David A. Williams

Posted 2008-12-16 by Judy Wight Branson
The Arizona Republic, Phoenix, Arizona
Friday, May 18, 2001

David A. Williams, 58, of Prescott Ariz., died Sunday May 13 at Scottsdale Osborn Hospital after a long illness.

Williams, was most recently in a private law practice in Prescott Valley, Arizona.

Born in South Orange, New Jersey, in 1943, Williams graduated from Bates College in Lewiston, Maine, and received his Juris Doctor from Boston University Law School.

As a Peace Corps volunteer in the South Pacific nation of Fiji following law school, he designed the fisheries cooperative in the capital city of Suva that is still in use to this day.

After returning to the United States, Williams was a public defender and also staff counsel for Pine Tree Legal Assistance of Maine. He was later an Assistant Attorney General of the State of Maine, and in 1976 was a Demoncratic candidate for state senator from Freeport.

He was a lecturer at Boston University law School and an adjunct professor of law at New England Law School in Boston. Mr. Williams was a journalist for several years, first as the televsion critic for the Portland Press Herald in Portland, Maine, and later for the Arizona Daily Star in Tucson, Arizona. He was elected president of the Television Critics Association in 1983.

He was a Demoncratic candidate for state representative in Arizona, and later returned to the practice of law for various Phoenix-area firms over the past decade. He is the former executive director of the Arizona State Bar Assocation, a non-rofit legal aid society headquartered in Phoenix, and former president of the board of directors of the Prescott Child Development Center.

He is survived by his wife, Roseline Yu-Mei Pai Williams, of the Phoenix Public Library system and 2 sons, Andrew Williams of Dewey, Arizona, and Robert Williams-St Mary of Freeport, Maine. He is also survived by his father, Gordon L. Williams of New Jersey a sister, Mary Jane Esser of New Jersey and two brothers, Richard of Michigan and Brian of New York. His mother, Dorothy Pampel Williams, died in 1992.

Services have been held.

Donations can be made to Prescott Child Development Center, 1045 West Whipple St, Prescott, Ariz., 86305.

Arrangements by Messinger Indian School Mortuary.




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