Thomas Clifford Billig

Biography

Thomas C. Billig served as associate professor of law at Washington and Lee University during the academic year 1925-1926. He was given a special appointment for one year while Professor Lewis Tyree was on leave. Former dean of the Washington and Lee School of Law, Professor William R. Vance of Yale University, recommended Billig for this job. At W&L, Billig taught Contracts, Negotiable Instruments, and Sales.

Thomas Clifford Billig was born in Beaver Falls, Pennsylvania in 1894. After graduation from New Brighton (Pennsylvania) High School, Billig began studies at the University of Pittsburgh on a scholarship. When his father died leaving Billig with dependent relatives, he quit college and took up newspaper work. He used some of his earnings to complete a B.A. from Geneva College (Beaver Falls, PA) in 1918 and an M.A. from the University of Pennsylvania in 1922. He took law classes at the University of Pennsylvania, Cornell University, and the University of Pittsburgh. During this time, Billig worked both as a journalist and a teacher, first at Pennsylvania Military College and then at Washington and Jefferson College. He transferred to Yale University with great success, and was awarded the LL.B. and J.S.D. degrees in 1925 and 1928. He received the Order of the Coif and was named a Sterling fellow.

In the decades following his stay at W&L, Billig held numerous teaching and government positions. He also was associated, in the years 1928-1930, with the New York law firm of Root, Clark, Buckner and Ballintine. He served on the law faculties of Cornell, Ohio State, West Virginia, Duke, George Washington, Northwestern, Columbia, and City College of New York. His longest stint was at Catholic University, where he was first a lecturer and then and assistant professor of law from 1937 to 1950. He worked for the National Recovery Administration, the Department of Commerce, the Federal Security Agency, and the Interior Department.

Billig belong to many professional, social, and fraternal organizations. He also published about forty law review articles. Among the books he wrote or edited are the third and fourth editions of Holbrook and Aigler’s Cases on the Law of Bankruptcy. In 1927 he married fellow attorney Melba Christina Stucky, who died in 1939. They had three sons. In 1941 he married Marie V. Clancy. Billig suffered a stroke in 1951. He died in Bethesda, Maryland in 1953.