SIR Bidwell Branch 110 Luncheon August 26, 2024
Larry Willis
Our speaker for August was Larry Willis who is a retired Butte
County Defence Attorney and a current member of SIRs.
He will talk about the history of Public Defender services in Butte
County.
Larry attended Chico Junior, Chico High and Chico State.
He then joined the navy and ended up at Officer Candidate School.
After an unsuccessful attempt to become a jet pilot due to a bad back,
he was sent to the USS Bennington (CVS-20) where he served the rest of
his time including a year in the Tonkin Gulf.
After the navy, he went to McGeorge School of Law and graduated in
1972. He then started working in his dad’s office as a certified law
student in the summer of 1971 and officially joined the practice
in December 1972.
For 18 years he had a general practice with his dad, Willis & Willis
and did a lot of court appointed criminal work as well as representing
a major property management company, a bail bond agency and a credit
bureau. In 1979, He was invited to join a group of lawyers who were
submitting a bid to take on the public defender services in Butte
County. This was about the same time his dad was getting ready to
retire from full time practice. They got the contract and he was one
the contract public defenders full time for 22 years. In 2011, he
closed his office but continued to do special appearances for other
lawyers for another 8 years and then completely retired in November
2019.