Joseph I. Bentley is an attorney, graduating from the University of Chicago Law School and is a retired partner in the law firm of Latham & Watkins. He has contributed to the Encyclopedia of Mormonism and co-authored, with Dallin Oaks, an article in BYU Studies entitled “Joseph Smith and Legal Process: In the Wake of the Steamboat Nauvoo.” For the past three years he is serving as a volume editor for the Joseph Smith Papers Project. Bentley is currently Chair of the Council for Mormon Studies at Claremont Graduate University and International Board Chair of the J. Reuben Clark Law Society. In the Church he served a full-time mission in Argentina and has served as a high councilor, bishop, stake president, and regional representative. For the past decade he has served as Director of LDS Public Affairs for Orange County, California.
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FairMormon Conference Presentations
Legal Trials of the Prophet: Joseph Smith’s Life in Court (2006)