SCOTTSDALE, Ariz. – David A. Williams, an attorney and former journalist who once designed a fisheries cooperative in Fiji, died May 13 after a long illness. He was 58.

Williams had been in private practice in Scottsdale. While in the Peace Corps, he designed the fisheries cooperative in Suva, Fiji’s capital, that’s still in use.

Subsequently he served as a public defender and staff attorney for Pine Tree Legal Assistance of Maine, later becoming an assistant attorney general for Maine. He also was a lecturer at Boston University Law School and an adjunct professor of law at New England Law School in Boston. He also served as executive director of the Arizona State Bar Association, a legal aid organization.

He served as television critic for the Portland Press Herald in Portland, Maine, and later worked for The Arizona Daily Star in Tucson.

He was elected president of the Television Critics Association in 1983.

A funeral Mass will be conducted at 11 a.m. Thursday at Our Lady of Sorrows in Phoenix. Burial will be private.