J. Craig Williams

Craig Williams is currently a partner in the international litigation and business law firm Sedgwick, Detert, Moran & Arnold’s Orange County, California office.  His practice focuses on the areas of complex business litigation with emphasis on environmental, intellectual property, real estate, technology law and labor matters, and their respective insurance coverage and related tort issues.  He was recently honored in OCMetro Magazine’s “O.C.’s Top Lawyers” in the area of litigation.

An accomplished speaker, Williams has lectured as an adjunct professor at the University of Iowa College of Law on Trial Advocacy, Stanford Law School on Environmental Insurance Coverage, Chapman University School of Law on Legal Writing and Research, the University of California, Irvine on Toxics Law, and the University of California, Irvine Extension Environmental Management Program on The Regulatory Framework for Hazardous and Toxic Materials.

He has published How to Get Sued: An Instructional Guide, as well as, Bad Decisions? 10 Famous Cases That Went Wrong which will be released next year. He also wrote the Foreword for the reissued hardcover book, The Path of the Law by Oliver Wendell Holmes. He was a contributing reporter on environmental litigation of the “ABA Real Estate Quarterly Report,” and is the author of many articles, including “Defense of Environmental Criminal Cases By the Numbers of Science and the Law,” and “The Liabilities of Social Networking Sites”.

Williams attended the United States Coast Guard Academy, New London, Connecticut, from 1975 to 1976. He completed his undergraduate work at James Madison University, where he received his B.S. in 1979, with a major in Communications Arts – Radio, TV, Film and Journalism and a minor in Biology.  He was a member of Omicron Delta Kappa and served as President of the Commuter Student Association. He received his J.D. in 1987, from the University of Iowa College of Law, with distinction. While at law school, he served on the Moot Court Board and was a Certified Practicing Student Clerk where he handled a criminal jury trial, argued before the Court of Appeal and briefed a matter before the Iowa Supreme Court.

Williams has maintained close ties with James Madison University since graduating three decades ago and has been a loyal donor to the university.  His brother, Todd Thomas Williams, graduated from James Madison University in 1986.  While his family lived in Harrisonburg, his father served as the minister of St. Stephen’s United Church of Christ and his mother worked in the athletic office at JMU during the time that Williams and his brother attended JMU.