Following his graduation of Yale Law School in 1922, Atkins moved to Muskogee, Oklahoma to open a law firm with Carter Walker Wesley, a Northwestern Law School graduate and fellow Fraternity brother who was initiated at the Fraternity's Ft. Des Moines chapter. The firm, initially named Saddler, Atkins, & Wesley, operated offices in Muskogee and Tulsa."Brother J. Alston Atkins," Oracle 1, no. 3 (1922): 4-5. By 1927, Atkins and Wesley relocated the firm to Houston, Texas, a short time after which the two were joined by James Nabrit Jr. to form the firm of Nabrit, Atkins, & Wesley. Also in 1927, Atkins was admitted to practice law before the U.S. Supreme Court. In 1935, he argued the case of Grovey v. Townsend, a landmark civil rights case in which Grovey was denied an absentee ballot for voting in a Texas primary election. The case resulted in defeat, but it was overruled a nearly a decade later by the Court's decision in Smith v. Allwright. Atkins briefly served as editor of the Informer and Texas Freeman in Houston before returning to his home state of North Carolina.
