Kathy has been practicing law since 1992, and is the founder of Kathy S. Williams P.L.L.C. Born to a military U.S. family in Okinawa, Japan, she grew up as the second child in a household with three brothers.She graduated from East Carolina University in Greenville, North Carolina in 1987. While she was there, she gained a commission as a Second Lieutenant in the Army Reserves.She then went on to law school at Wake Forest School of Law in Winston-Salem, NC. After a one-year interruption in her studies for active duty service in Desert Shield and Desert Storm in 1990-1991, she graduated from Wake Forest School of Law in 1992. She was licensed as an attorney in August 1992.After a Position as Assistant Public Defender in Gastonia, she moved to Durham in 1994, and served as an Assistant Public Defender here for two years. She then left the Public Defender's office to open the Law Office of Kathy Williams in April of 1996. Also in 1996, she resigned from the Army Reserves after serving nine years on active duty and in the Reserves, and having attained the rank of Captain.In the summer of 1999, she married Thurman Richardson, Jr. and changed her name from Kathy S. Williams to Kathy Williams Richardson.