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Charles Williams and Cappy Thompson |
Charles Williams was born into a military family in 1951. His late father Lucian Williams married Shizue Araki while serving in Japan. They moved to the Northwest and raised a family of four children.
Charles spent most of his childhood in Seattle, graduating from Franklin High School in 1970. He attended the University of Chicago, studying its common core curriculum for two years, and then moved to Olympia, where he completed his undergraduate education at The Evergreen State College in 1974.
His first job was with the Washington State Attorney General's Office in Olympia, where he assisted a blind Assistant Attorney General for three years. Encouraged by lawyers in the AG's office, Charles entered law school at the University of Puget Sound in Tacoma, where he received a three-year full-tuition scholarship. While in law school he served as an administrative law judge for the State Personnel Board. He graduated in 1980.
Charles has been practicing law in his own law firm in Olympia since 1981. He has worked in family law, criminal defense, and civil (tort and contract) law. He has served as a pro tem judge in juvenile and district courts. He has been a leader in the legal community, serving as president of the Washington Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers and as co-chair and editor of the quarterly magazine, Washington Criminal Defense (1996-2004).
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Charles with students in his 2005-06 mock-trial class. |
Charles has a passion for working with young people. For the past 24 years, he has organized the Thurston County Bar Association's annual Law Day High School Speech Competition. In 1996, Charles was invited by a former high school teacher to come talk to Franklin High School's Law and Society class. Since then, he has served as the Lawyer-Coach for the school's mock-trial debate team.
Under Charles' tutelage this team has become one of America's all-time greatest mock-trial teams. In the last 10 years, it has won 7 county championships, six state championships, three national top-ten titles, and one national championship.
Charles is married to his childhood friend Cappy Thompson, a glass artist. They live in Tumwater. |
