For a glimpse into Seth Williams' vision for the Philadelphia District Attorney's Office, look west.

In his first detailed interview since winning election Tuesday, Williams said he will not immediately make wholesale changes in the operation - 300 assistant prosecutors, 250 support staff - that he will inherit Jan. 5. But he does want to quickly replicate the "best practices" he observed on recent visits to the prosecutors' offices in San Francisco and San Diego.

The San Diego experience, he said, shows "the critical importance" of improving Philadelphia's charging unit, where assistant D.A.s take the details from police arrest sheets and write them up as criminal charges.

More than half of the felony cases pursued by the Philadelphia D.A. are dismissed at preliminary hearings, Williams said. He contended he can improve on that score by assigning accomplished prosecutors to the charging unit, which now often is staffed by the least experienced.

"I want to take that mundane chore," Williams said, "and glorify it."

In San Diego, he said, "The reward for being a great prosecutor is becoming a prosecutor in the charging unit."

The result is that "75 percent of [San Diego's] cases are resolved by guilty pleas before the preliminary hearing," he said, "because everybody knows they only charge you if they have evidence to prove your guilt beyond a reasonable doubt. They don't use the charging process as a way of saying, 'We don't really know what happened. We'll find out when it goes to court.' "

Misjudgments in charging not only clog the courts, they hamper convictions, he said. "So putting more resources into the front end [will] pay dividends in the back end."

Regarding overall staffing, Williams said most assistant prosecutors should not fear for their jobs in the transition to his administration.

"For the rank-and-file prosecutors, unless I see something egregious in their personnel files, they are fine," he said. "They are just hardworking people."

He does expect, however, to make changes at the supervisory level, beginning with the creation of a transition committee of several dozen members. It will be led by prominent lawyers Mark Aronchick and JoAnne Epps, and include Neumann University management expert Frederick Loomis, former police commissioner Sylvester Johnson, community activist Dorothy Johnson-Speight of the antiviolence group Mothers in Charge, among other advocates.

Aronchick, a partner at Hangley, Aronchick, Segal & Pudlin, is a former city solicitor and former chancellor of the Philadelphia Bar Association. Epps is the dean of Temple University Law School.

In an interview, Aronchick said the full committee would meet for the first time during the week of Nov. 16, and thereafter in smaller groups on an as-needed basis.

"We will be taking a fresh look at one of the most important functions of city government," he said. The committee will give Williams advice on existing systems and possible innovations, said Aronchick, but personnel decisions will be Williams' alone.

Williams said he personally has received 40 to 50 resumes from lawyers and support staff. Other resumes have been routed to him through his campaign staff. In a typical year, about 30 assistant D.A.s leave the office voluntarily. Filling those jobs will depend on the constraints of the budget, currently nearly $30 million.

Also key to the transition will be current First Assistant D.A. Arnold Gordon, who Williams said "has been part of every transition since Arlen Specter" was D.A. from 1966 to 1974.

Williams has met with Gordon. He has yet to meet with departing D.A. Lynne M. Abraham, who has run the office since 1991.

In a few cases where he knows supervisory positions will be open because of impending retirements, he may announce new division heads sometime after Thanksgiving, Williams said.

Currently the office is divided into six divisions: trial, narcotics, investigations, juvenile, law and administrative.

"Many of the people that are there in positions of leadership might just get moved around," he said, "or go back to being line D.A.s in the units. They may go back to being prosecutors of rapes and shooting cases.

"There will be some people who, I'm sure, won't remain," he added. "But that will be on a limited and case-by-case basis."

Another critical post is chief of county detectives, who oversees a unit of about 70 detectives.

In an effort to crack down on drug crimes, Williams said he wants the unit to step up the use of wire taps, surveillance and undercover operations.

Regarding programs to combat illegal drugs, Williams again sees something out west to emulate.

In San Francisco, a program called "Back on Track" is having success with nonviolent offenders. Created by San Francisco D.A. Kamala Harris, it deals mainly with drug abusers.

On vacation with his family this week, Williams is reading Harris' new book, Smart on Crime.

In 2003, Harris made history as California's first African American woman elected a D.A.

This week Williams made history as the first African American elected a district attorney in Pennsylvania.

But in his victory speech he made no mention of that milestone.

A day later, he used lawyerly Latin to explain that decision.

"Res ipsa loquitor," the thing speaks for itself, he translated. "Me, just standing there, spoke for itself."

Contact staff writer Michael Matza at 215-854-2541 or mmatza@phillynews.com.