William is a former chairman of the Patent and Trademark Section of the Indiana State Bar Association.
William attended the University of Evansville in Evansville, Indiana, where he received a B.S. degree in 1959 in industrial engineering with a mechanical engineering option in studies. He attended Indiana University Law School'Indianapolis, graduating with a J.D. in 1963. He worked for five years as an engineer before entering the legal profession in 1964. His former intellectual property law firm, Jenkins, Coffey, Hyland, Badger, and Conard, merged with Barnes & Thornburg in 1982, making the firm the first full-service law firm in the state to have a substantial group of lawyers, all with engineering or science degrees, who practice exclusively in the areas of intellectual property and trade regulation.
