James D. Gordon III

Who is James D. Gordon III?

James D. Gordon III is an American legal academic who has also held administrative positions at Brigham Young University.

As a young man, Gordon served a mission for The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in Italy.

Gordon earned a bachelor's degree in political science from BYU. He then earned a law degree from the University of California, Berkeley. He was a law clerk for Judge Monroe G. McKay of the 10th United States Circuit court. He then practiced law in Salt Lake City before joining the BYU faculty.

At BYU, Gordon served as Marion B. and Rulon A. Earl Professor of Law. He also was acting dean of the J. Reuben Clark Law School from 2009 to 2010 and served for a time as associate academic vice president for faculty at BYU. In this position, he served as the point man for the university's position in relation to the refusal to grant continuing status to a few professors at BYU in the mid-1990s who publicly criticized the school or its sponsoring institution instead of producing worth-while scholarship in their fields of endeavor. The most radical that Gordon had to deal with may have been Gail T. Houston, who advocated prayer practices out-of-line with the teachings of the LDS Church.