William Pelham Barr served as U.S. attorney general from 1991 to 1993. Prior to his appointment, he served as a key legal advisor to President George Bush and a policy advisor to President Ronald Reagan.

Barr was born on May 23, 1950, in New York City. He graduated from Columbia University in 1971 and completed a program in Chinese Studies at Columbia in 1973. Barr then moved to Washington, D.C., where he joined the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) as an intelligence officer. While working at the agency, Barr enrolled at George Washington University Law School as a night student. He graduated in 1977 and then clerked for one year with a federal court judge.

In 1978, Barr went to work for a prominent Washington, D.C. law firm but left in 1982 to serve on President Ronald Reagan's Domestic Policy Council. Though he returned to his old law firm two years later, Barr's stay was...