William Sheffield

William Sheffield was an American attorney and judge in the state of California. He was a general legal counsel for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (LDS Church) in the Asia Area of the church and was closely connected with the sending of Mormon missionaries to India by the church in the late-20th century. Sheffield has also served as a judge in the Superior Courts of California, Orange County. Sheffield earned his undergraduate degree from California State University, Long Beach. and then attended law school at the University of California, Berkeley. From 1983 to 1985 Sheffield was a judge on the Superior Court of California, sitting in Orange County. He also served as a member of Indira Gandhi's defense team in the late 1970s (see below). In 1985, Sheffield resigned his judgeship and went to Yale Divinity School. At the time Sheffield began attending services of the Methodist Church. His wife was a Latter-day Saint. Sheffield's investigations of Mormonism while at Yale lead him to enroll at Brigham Young University (BYU), which had created a graduate program in theology for his study. He did much of his work at BYU under Joseph Fielding McConkie and eventually joined the LDS Church, whereupon he returned to Yale where he completed his divinity degree.