About Judith A
Judith A Williams took an unusual path to the law. She began her academic life at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, earning a B.A. in English and Spanish in 1963 and a Master of Education in 1966. The classroom and language studies shaped her early career, and decades later she returned to school and completed a J.D. at Whittier Law School in 1993.
That late-career pivot to law led to steady work in family law and mediation. Licensed to practice in both California and Texas, she developed a practice that leaned toward resolving disputes outside the courtroom. She completed mediation training at Pepperdine University School of Law, earning certificates in Divorce Mediation Skills and Advanced Family Mediation Skills. Those credentials informed the way she approached divorce cases—methodically, with attention to procedure and to the people involved.
Her professional life has included sustained involvement in local bar organizations. Beginning in the mid-1990s she served on the Board of Directors for the Orange County Barristers from 1996 to 2000, and maintained membership in that group through 2005. She joined the Family Law Section’s Community Service Committee in the late 1990s. Around the same time she held membership in the American Bar Association. In Orange County’s women lawyers group she took on leadership roles: board member from 2001 to 2008 and president for the 2004–2005 term. Those posts placed her in the thick of local legal education and community programming for family law practitioners.
Her approach to cases reflects the training she pursued. She draws on mediation techniques learned at Pepperdine, and on years of practice in two state jurisdictions, to guide couples toward negotiated resolutions. She has worked in matters that require both procedural knowledge and interpersonal facilitation. Colleagues describe her as precise in procedure and steady in temperament; clients have said she can make complex paperwork feel comprehensible.
Today she is based at the Center for Mediated Divorce. There she handles divorce mediation and related family law matters, preferring negotiated settlements when the facts and the parties allow them. Her calendar typically includes mediated sessions, drafting of settlement agreements, and consultations on parenting plans and property division. She continues to combine courtroom knowledge with trained mediation skills to help clients reach practical outcomes.
She practices family law and mediation at the Center for Mediated Divorce, focusing on divorce mediation and associated family law issues.
