01:00 AM EST on Saturday, February 19, 2005

BY TRACY BRETON and PAUL EDWARD PARKER
Journal Staff Writers

PROVIDENCE -- Frank J. Williams, the chief justice of the state Supreme Court, yesterday took down a personal Web site through which he had been soliciting paid speaking engagements.

In an e-mail sent to the media just after 6 p.m., Williams said he was removing the Web site www.frankjwilliams.com "because I am concerned that it has generated unnecessary public attention which may detract from the good work consistently being done by the Rhode Island Judiciary. This was never my intent and, to me, this is not an acceptable result of an effort designed in good faith."

An identical statement had been posted on the site's home page at 5:50 p.m.

Williams paid a court employee $1,500 to design the Web site, which told visitors of his many interests -- from Doberman pinschers and cooking to Abraham Lincoln and the law. It also included a page through which people could book Williams as a speaker, for a fee.

In announcing yesterday that he was removing the Web site, Williams said he had created it "to provide easily accessible information for those interested," but that in recent days -- since The Providence Journal published a front-page story Feb. 10 about the site -- it had attracted too much attention.

Dyana Koelsch, spokeswoman for the state judiciary, said last night that Williams had not elaborated on his reasons for taking the Web site off the Internet. She said he told her shortly before the courts closed yesterday what he was going to do, but did not share the thought process behind his decision.

Williams did not respond to a telephone call placed to his home last night, nor to e-mails sent to his personal and court addresses.

This week, Rep. James F. Davey, R-Cranston, a retired chief clerk for the U.S. District Court in Washington, D.C., sent Williams a letter asking him to "reconsider" his decision to establish the Web site in the light of "principles and standards established by the Code of Judicial Conduct." Davey said: "I submit that reasonable people could conclude that the Web site establishment violates the spirit and, possibly, the intent of these principles and standards."

The Web site -- which Williams says he spent $2,500 to create, including what he paid to court employee Seana SanAntonio -- was a compilation of many facets of Williams' life.

The home page featured a laudatory quote from a former president of the Rhode Island Bar Association, John Roney, who called Williams "fair, honest, compassionate, scholarly and diligent."

The site also included dozens of photos of Williams: as judge, war veteran, Doberman pinscher owner, gourmet chef and Lincoln scholar.

There were pictures of Williams with President Bush and Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld. Others showed him preparing a lobster and feeding biscuits to his dogs.

The site touted the chief justice's talent as a chef and included two of his favorite recipes: Lone Star carrot cake, and a lemon cake made with Duncan Hines Lemon Supreme cake mix and Jell-O instant lemon pudding.

Bruce Green, a legal ethics professor at Fordham University in New York, said in an interview last week that "the self-laudatory stuff on the Web site is more a matter of taste than ethics, some might say. But what seems troublesome to me is the soliciting of paid speaking engagements. It looks like he's using his official position to solicit business as a speaker."

Although Williams has removed his Web site from the Internet, part of it will live on -- in a fashion. Less than six hours before he scrapped the site, its home page became listed on Google, an Internet search engine. Google also saved a copy of the home page, called a cache, that can be accessed through the search engine.