David Ricardo Williams worked as a lawyer in British Columbia and was also a writer of both fiction and history. His first book was a history of his parish and after this he wrote books mostly concerned with legal and political figures. Williams was called to the B.C. bar in 1949 and subsequently moved to Duncan where he practised law as a criminal and civil litigator. He became a Queen’s Counsel in 1969. Williams was one of the founders of the B.C. Forest Museum, served in the Senate and the Board of Governors at UBC, and served as president of the Duncan Chamber of Commerce. In 1980 he became an Adjunct Professor at the University of Victoria. He died in 1999, having authored ten books.
Osgoode Society for Canadian Legal History Books
Just Lawyers: Seven Portraits (Toronto: The Osgoode Society and University of Toronto Press, 1995), 285 pp.
Duff: A Life in the Law (Vancouver: The Osgoode Society and University of British Columbia Press, 1984), 311 pp. Winner of the Hubert Evans Non-Fiction Prize, 1985.
Other Legal History Publications
With Malice Aforethought: Six Spectacular Canadian Trials (Victoria, B.C.: Sono Nis Press, 1993), 226 pp. Winner of the Crime Writers of Canada award for best book of true crime, 1984.
Matthew Baillie Begbie (Toronto: Fitzhenry and Whiteside, 1980), 263 pp. (formerly The Man for a New Century: Sir Matthew Baillie Begbie (Vancouver: Gray’s Publishing 1977), Winner of the UBC Medal for Canadian Biography)
Trapline outlaw: Simon Peter Gunanoot (Victoria, B.C.: Sono Nis Press, 1982), 170 pp.
