Chris Townley has never been known as a loud man.
As a longtime attorney, the 67-year-old Townley let his actions speak for him. Friends, colleagues and family members say he led by example, was a professional inside and outside of the courtroom and went about his business the right way.
Early in his career, Townley practiced law in South Georgia. There was a stretch where the district attorney he was working under couldn’t try cases, so in a seven-county area he tried them all when he was fresh out of law school.
One of the lawyers at the time told the soft-spoken Townley that he needed to speak up more.
“So I did what he said, and then they started saying how I sounded like a Baptist preacher,” Townley said. “The next floor up they could hear me talking.”