William Sterling Williams, ESQ

William S. Williams specializes in the practice areas of wrongful death and personal injury from Automobile, Motorcycle, Pedestrian and Commercial Trucking collisions, as well as Product Liability, Maritime, Aviation, Premises Liability, Chemical Exposure, General Negligence, Legal Malpractice and Toxic Tort cases throughout Florida and the United States. He has practiced exclusively in this area during his career. William is a Florida Bar Board Certified Civil Trial Lawyer, which is the highest level of recognition for attorney competency and experience. He has one of the largest personal injury settlements in the history of Florida.    William obtained his first $1 million case before he was thirty years old.  He has represented individuals from the State of Florida, the United States, and around the world, who have been catastrophically injured or have lost a family member in a tragedy.

In his career, he has obtained verdicts and settlements in excess of two hundred million dollars. Mr. Williams obtained the largest wrongful death verdict in Alachua County, Florida, at the time, and had the largest verdict in the history of Sumter County, Florida. In 2015 he obtained a 16 million dollar verdict in a class action suit involving inverse condemnation; a state record, as well as prior multimillion dollar verdicts in civil class action cases totaling over $30 million dollars in 2014 and an 18 million dollar verdict in 2011, all State records.

William S. Williams is from one of the oldest families in the United States of America and, more particularly, one of America’s founding families who arrived in the Massachusetts Bay Colony in 1637.  Members of his New England family were involved in the settlement and protection of the western part of the Massachusetts Bay Colony during the French and Indian Wars and are some of the most prominent military and religious leaders in Colonial America.  Rev. Elisha Williams was the fourth President of Yale University. Colonel Ephraim Williams was the founder of Williams College.  William Williams was a Signer of the Declaration of Independence.

William is also the grandson of Norwegian industrialist Karl Ragnar Fagerberg, who helped develop Norway’s power and water energy systems.  Along with his grandfather, William’s mother was active in the Norwegian resistance during German occupation of The Kingdom of Norway. William wrote the book “Terror Before Dawn, A Child at War”, based upon his mother’s experiences as a child in Nazi occupied Norway

William is also a fourth generation Floridian and Palm Beach County native.  His great-grandfather, Henry J. Sterling, was one of the earliest pioneers of southern Palm Beach County after buying land from Henry M. Flagler, and was a founder of the area in the late 1800s that became Delray Beach. When Palm Beach County was established, Sterling offered to donate land if the county seat was to be located in Delray Beach. The Sterling and Williams family were honored by the Historical Society of Palm Beach County for their many contributions to Palm Beach County which included the founding of Delray Beach, the donation of a city block for a children’s playground, and the founding of the Bethesda Memorial Hospital along with their other contributions to the area.

Family History

• The Trustenegee – The Sterlings
• The Story of Henry and Ethel Sterling
• The Ethel Sterling Williams History Learning Center
• Pioneer women’s legacies live on in city institutions