William LeFils Duval Jr. passed away on Sunday, August 11, 2019, after a three-year battle with leukemia. Bill was born on March 6, 1945, in Santa Monica, the firstborn child of Charlotte Gibson Duval and William LeFils Duval Sr. The family, including Bill’s brothers, Quinton and John, and his sister, Clare, moved frequently during Bill’s childhood to follow his father’s work for the Douglas Aircraft Company in the space program. He attended school in Santa Monica; Las Cruces, NM; and Cocoa Beach, FL; and at Gresham’s School in Norfolk, England, before returning to Southern California to graduate from Santa Monica High School in 1963.
En route to the beginning of his college career at Berkeley, Bill stopped off at UCSB to visit a friend and never made it to the Bay Area. Bill graduated from UCSB in 1967 and from the UCLA School of Law in 1970; he was admitted to the bar in January 1971. He worked in the public defender’s offices in both Los Angeles and Santa Barbara until 1978, when he established the firm of Lentz and Duval with Gib Lentz, his longtime law partner and friend. Bill specialized in criminal defense work, was on the board of the Santa Barbara County Bar Association, and served as president in 1991. From 1997 to 2018 Bill served on the board of the Downtown Organization of Santa Barbara, where he was president from 2006 to 2008.
Bill married Barbara Dondero in 1968, and together they had three children, Alyssa, William, and Charlotte. In 1990, he married Kathleen Kirby and was fortunate to also become a stepfather to her children, Vanessa and Joey.