More than half a century as a lawyer has convinced Peter Billings Sr. of something the general public has long believed: There are too many lawyers.
Three of Billings' four sons and all four of his daughters-in-law are attorneys.Though he's proud of his family, Billings questions the benefit of an abundance of attorneys.
"I don't think having so many lawyers improves things," he said. Billings is particularly dismayed by the mean-spiritedness displayed by today's lawyers.
"We all knew each other. We all treated each other as friends and gentlemen. They don't do that anymore. It's very disturbing, I think."
Billings' own career has proved him to be just the sort of attorney he thinks society lacks - one that roars like a lawyer but always behaves like a gentleman.
"He's a gentleman. There's no question about it," said former Gov. Cal Rampton. "I've never seen him do a crude or a vulgar thing."
Though Billings may have always behaved like a gentleman, he hasn't always wanted to be a lawyer.
As a student at the University of Utah he had plans to go into journalism. His senior year, a caption under his photo in the Utonian, the school's yearbook, read, "Pete plans to be editor of Time."
Billings decided not to go into journalism after he failed to be appointed editor-in-chief of the Daily Chronicle his senior year.
Instead, he entered Harvard Law School in 1938. He graduated in 1941, worked for a few months in a law firm in San Francisco and then the war broke out.
He quit his job to work in the Pentagon as chief of the legal division in the office of transportation.
After the war, he returned to Salt Lake City and joined the law firm of Fabian and Clendenin.
"He stands apart from many attorneys," said Diane Abeg-glen, regional vice president of the American Arbitration Association. "He's more concerned about finding a fair resolution than dragging disputes out."
This fierce concern for his clients has guided Billings through a remarkable career.
He helped draft the bill that formed the state's Board of Regents. And then-Gov. Rampton appointed him as the first chairman of that organization.
Billings, who specialized in antitrust and banking laws, served as the director of four Utah banks, served as general counsel for the Utah Banking Association for more than 20 years and represented the Utah commissioner of financial institutions.
He opened the Utah office of the American Arbitration Association, has been a member of the Board of Trustees of Westminster College, president of the Utah Association of Mental Health and a member of the board of Family Services Society and the Utah Health Association.
In the past year, many of these organizations have held banquets in his honor.
"They are all trying to take care of me before I die," said Billings, who has terminal cancer in his neck.
"Last winter they told me I only had 30 days to live," he said, sitting in his office at Fabian and Clendenin. The cancer has deformed his right cheek and sometimes makes it difficult for him to hear.
"We're all proud of the way he's handled his medical problem. He's handled it courageously and tried to put other people at ease," said Rampton.
Everyone has something nice to say about Billings, but one of Billings' favorite compliments came in 1957, the first time he argued before the U.S. Supreme Court.
Afterward, Justice Felix Frankfurter penned a note to another justice, "This young Billings made a noise like a lawyer. So I looked him up and he's Harvard, of course."