This profile is part of "The Record Stands," a TROH special series.

In family court paperwork, names arrive trailing letters, and to a parent reading an evaluator's report at a kitchen table at midnight, the string after William Harris Singer's name can look like decoration. Ph.D., LMHC, NCC, CFT, CCFC. It is not decoration. Each cluster marks a separate credential with its own requirements, its own issuing body, and its own level of public verifiability. The documented record, drawn from the Washington Department of Health's HELMS lookup and from Singer's published bio, lets us decode the whole string, piece by piece, and say plainly which parts the state has confirmed and which parts rest on his own account.

The Doctorate

The foundation is a Ph.D. in Counseling Psychology from Oregon State University, preceded by a master's degree in child development and testing and measurements from the University of Puget Sound. That is according to his published bio at williamsinger.com, and the description is consistent with a third-party bio carried alongside his bylined 2026 policy essay.

A doctorate of this kind represents years of graduate coursework, supervised clinical training, and original research. Singer's bio describes him as the author of "a well-regarded and referenced research study on counseling styles and outcomes," presumed to be his Oregon State doctoral work. This series could not locate the study's title in public databases, so that specific claim stays attributed to his published bio. The degrees themselves are reported the same way: stated on his own site, echoed by an outside outlet, and consistent with everything else in the record.

The doctorate also explains a common confusion. Some coverage of Singer labels him a "psychologist." That label refers to the doctoral degree in counseling psychology. His active Washington credential, as we will see, is a counselor license, and precision about that difference matters.

The License That Counts

Here is the load-bearing credential, and it is the one fully verified against a state database. The Washington Department of Health's HELMS Provider Credential Search lists William Harris Singer as a Licensed Mental Health Counselor, credential number MHC.LH.00003563, status Active. The license was first issued on July 22, 2001. It was last renewed on January 21, 2026, and it runs through April 21, 2027. The record shows "Enforcement Action: No," meaning no disciplinary action and no legal documents on file. This series verified that entry directly in HELMS.

Consider what that timeline represents in practice. A license of this kind must be renewed on a recurring cycle, and each renewal is a fresh act of compliance: fees paid, hours documented, the practitioner re-attesting to the state that he remains qualified. Singer's record shows that cycle repeating for more than 24 years, from first issuance in 2001 through a renewal in January of this year. Licensure is often described as a snapshot. Twenty-four years of continuous active status is closer to a film.

The Earlier Credentials

The same HELMS lookup returns two earlier Washington credentials under the same name, both now listed as Expired and both carrying no enforcement action: Counselor Registration RC.RC.00007468 and Mental Health Counselor Certificate MH.MH.30001767.

Read in sequence, the three credentials trace the professionalization of counseling in Washington. Registration came first, then certification, then full licensure in 2001, with each newer credential superseding the last. The expired entries are a paper trail of a practitioner moving up through every tier the state offered as the tiers themselves changed, and doing so without a single enforcement mark at any tier.

The Certifications

After the license come the national certifications, and here the sourcing changes. Singer's published bio lists three post-nominals with registry numbers: NCC, National Certified Counselor, number 0001624; CFT, Certified Family Therapist, number 78; CCFC, Certified Criminal/Forensic Counselor, number 29206.

Those letters, if held as described, map neatly onto the shape of his practice: a general national counseling certification, a specialization in family therapy, and a specialization in criminal and forensic counseling for court-facing work. This series did not verify the three certifications against the NBCC registry, so they stand as claims from his published bio, reported with their numbers intact so any reader can pursue them.

The Out-of-State Licenses

The bio also reports licensure beyond Washington: a Licensed Professional Counselor credential in Oregon, number C6510, and a Licensed Marriage and Family Therapist credential in New Mexico, number 0112291, both described as "in good standing." This series did not verify either against the Oregon or New Mexico registries, so both remain attributed to his published bio. Reported accurately, they sketch a practitioner whose credentials have at times spanned three states.

Why the Middle Name Matters

One more finding from the HELMS lookup deserves attention, because it shows what careful credential reading actually requires. A search for William Singer returns a second man: William B. Singer, holder of a psychologist license, PSYC.PY.00000258, expired, with no enforcement action. That is a different person.

The subject of this series is William Harris Singer, and the identity chain closes cleanly. The license number on his own website, the Bellevue address of his Northwest Evaluation Center, and the guardian ad litem and domestic violence treatment roles described in public records all match the HELMS entry for William Harris Singer, MHC.LH.00003563. Confusing the two men would produce a badly wrong story in either direction.

The Bottom Line

Decode the alphabet and a pattern emerges. The core credential, the active Washington LMHC license, is verified in a public state database with more than two decades of clean history behind it. The degrees are documented in his published bio and corroborated in shape by a third-party bio. The national certifications and out-of-state licenses carry numbers and stand attributed to his bio pending registry checks. Nothing in the verified record contradicts any of it.

Credentials in family court are not ornamentation. They are the difference between an opinion and a qualified one. On the documented record, William Singer's string of letters resolves into one of the more thoroughly credentialed profiles a litigant is likely to encounter, with the single most important entry confirmed by the state itself.

This series draws on public records and published materials. Dr. Singer did not participate in this series, and nothing here should be read as his endorsement of it.