Hon. Elijah H. Williams is a judge for the 17th Judicial Circuit Court of Florida in Broward County. He was appointed to the bench by former Governor Jeb Bush in 2002, filling the vacancy created by the elevation of the Hon. Melanie G. May to the Florida Fourth District Court of Appeal.
Williams has held assignments in the Criminal and Juvenile Delinquency Divisions.
He received a B.A. in political science from the University of Florida (1980) and an M.A. in political science and public administration from the University of Florida. Williams then completed a J.D. at the University of Florida, Fredric G. Levin College of Law, in 1983.
In 1984, Williams was commissioned as a Captain in the United States Air Force Judge Advocate General's Corps, where his assignments included the Staff Judge Advocate General; Chief of Preventative Law and Legal Assistance at Lowry Air Force Base in Denver, Colorado; and Chief of Civil Law and Chief of Military Justice at RAF (Royal Air Force) in Bentwaters, England. In 1989, he was selected to serve as Area Defense Counsel, in which he was required to travel across the European continent to defend military personnel accused of major crimes. During his service, Williams also taught as an adjunct assistant professor at Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University and the University of Maryland.
He resigned from the Air Force in 1989 and began his civilian legal career as an assistant state attorney with the Office of the State Attorney for the Seventeenth Judicial Circuit. Then, in 1992, Williams entered private practice, eventually joining Whitelock, Soloff & Rodriquez in 1993, where he was tasked with serving as general counsel to the Broward County Sheriff. Williams was named a partner at the firm two years later.
He left the firm in 1998 to join the Broward County Sheriff's Office, where he was hired to serve as interim director of the Department of Legal Affairs. Williams remained in the position until his appointment to the bench.
He was born and raised in Fort Lauderdale, Florida. Williams is an avid reader and bibliophile with a private collection of over 28,000 non-fiction books.