Peter Watson Billings Sr., 79, noted Utah lawyer of more than 50 years and first chairman of the Utah Coordinating Council for Higher Education, died in Salt Lake City on Sunday of cancer.
A fourth-generation Utahn, Billings was an active trial and appellate lawyer who appeared before the U.S. Supreme Court. Three of Billings' sons and all four of his daughters-in-law are also attorneys.Billings graduated from Harvard Law School in 1941 and worked for a few months in a San Francisco law firm until World War II broke out. He then served in the Pentagon in the office of the Chief of Transportation in Washington, D.C., where he was chief of the legal division.
After the war, he returned to Salt Lake City and joined the law firm of Fabian and Clendenin, where he remained of counsel until his death.
After several years as chairman of the board that governs the seven state colleges and universities in the state, Billings drafted legislation in 1969 that created the Utah Board of Regents.
Then Utah Gov. Calvin Rampton appointed Billings as the first chairman of the Utah Coordinating Council for Higher Education.
"He's a gentleman. There's no question about it," Rampton told the Deseret News in a profile this past summer of Billings. "I've never seen him do a crude or a vulgar thing."
Billings also specialized in dispute resolution and for his efforts to further that specific scope of the legal process in a speedy, inexpensive and fair manner, the Salt Lake office of the American Arbitration Association named him as the first recipient of the Outstanding Dispute Resolutions Service Award last March.
He was "more concerned about finding a fair resolution than dragging disputes out," Diane Abegglen, regional vice president of the arbitration organization, told the Deseret News.
Memorial services will be Tuesday at 11 a.m. at the Cathedral Church of St. Mark, 231 E. 100 South, Salt Lake City.