Bill Atkin serves as an Associate General Counsel of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and is responsible for the international legal affairs of the LDS Church working closely with four Regional Legal Counsel and 13 Area Legal Counsel. Formerly, Bill was an international partner in the law firm of Baker & McKenzie for almost 18 years. He was the managing partner of Baker & McKenzie offices in Taipei, Taiwan, San Francisco and Palo Alto and Moscow, Russia. He also worked in Baker & McKenzie’s Chicago and Caracas, Venezuela offices. Prior to joining Baker & McKenzie, Bill was a trial attorney with the Civil Division of the US Justice Department from 1976-1979 representing the US Government in the Court of International Trade. Prior to that, he worked as a law clerk to the Honorable David T. Lewis, then Chief Judge of the US Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit (1975-76). Bill received an LL.M. degree from Columbia University School of Law (1979)(with an emphasis on international and comparative law). He graduated magna cum laude with a J.D. from Arizona State University College of Law in 1975 where he served as Editor in Chief of the Arizona State Law Journal. Bill received his B.A. from Brigham Young University in 1972.