Samuel Williams, 61; Head of State Bar, Police Board

Samuel L. Williams, a highly visible Southern California attorney, a member of the boards of several prominent corporations, a past president of the Los Angeles Board of Police Commissioners and the first black to serve as president of the California State Bar, has died.

A spokeswoman for the law firm of Hufstedler & Kaus, where he had been a senior partner before retiring in 1990, said Williams had suffered a heart attack and died at his Los Angeles home Thursday night. He was 61 and had suffered a stroke in 1987.

At his death, Williams--a close friend and political intimate of former Mayor Tom Bradley--had filled a multitude of positions in professional life and community service.

In 1981 he turned down--for family and personal reasons--an offer by Gov. Edmund G. (Jerry) Brown Jr. to be appointed to the California Supreme Court.

Within his profession he had been president of the National Conference of Bar Presidents, a president of the Los Angeles County Bar Assn. and in 1981 head of the State Bar of California. He also had been chairman of the U.S. Circuit Judge Nominating Commission and the California Federal Selection Commission for Federal Judicial Nominations.

For his native city he had been a member and former president of the Los Angeles Board of Police Commissioners and was a staff attorney for the McCone Commission, which investigated the 1965 Watts riots. Williams was on the police commission in April, 1991, when amid rancorous debate it voted to suspend Chief Daryl F. Gates in the aftermath of the Rodney G. King beating.

He had been on the boards of the Walt Disney Co., the Bank of California, the Los Angeles Music Center, USC and several other organizations.

He played football and baseball at UC Berkeley while also being named an Academic All-American.

After graduating from the USC School of Law he worked as a probation officer and deputy state attorney general before entering private practice.

His honors included the Maynard Toll Award for lifetime service to the Los Angeles Legal Aid Foundation and the county Bar Assn.’s highest tribute, the Shattuck Price Award.

Shirley Hufstedler, former U.S. secretary of education, judge of the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals and now senior partner at Hufstedler & Kaus, the firm Williams joined in 1965, said: “We have lost a superb partner and a beloved friend. . . . Our country has lost a great American.”

He is survived by his wife, Beverly, a son and daughter. Funeral arrangements are pending.