William Singleton

William "Bill" Singleton was a pioneering Las Vegas attorney whose legal career spanned five decades. Born July 23, 1920, in Catron, Missouri, he graduated from Elgin High School in Illinois, completed his undergraduate studies at the University of Southern California, and earned his law degree at Stetson University in Florida, where he was captain of a debate team that toured internationally. He first came to Las Vegas as a chief warrant officer in the Army Air Corps during World War II, assigned to the gunnery school that became Nellis Air Force Base, and returned to the growing community in 1953 to practice law.

Singleton became a noted gaming and corporate lawyer. He was partners with David Goldwater until 1962, when he co-founded the Las Vegas law firm known through several names as partners changed - including Singleton, Beckley, Delanoy, Jemison & Reid, and later Beckley, Singleton, Jemison, Cobeaga & List. His clients included billionaire hotelier Kirk Kerkorian, the Las Vegas Sun, businessman Jerry Herbst, and gaming figure Jackie Gaughan. He served as lead attorney for Bonanza Airlines in a seven-year litigation following a plane crash in the early 1960s. From 1970 to 1974 he stepped away from the practice of law to serve as an executive at Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Inc., joining as an assistant to the president and becoming vice president for corporate development in 1972, where he helped drive the diversification that led to the construction of the original MGM hotel-casino on the Strip. He returned to his law firm in the mid-1970s and remained a senior partner until his death.

Singleton was past president of both the Nevada and Clark County Bar associations and served as insurance committee chairman for the American Bar Association. He was a member of the board of directors of Western Airlines and belonged to the Mystic Krewe, the Century Club, the Thomas Law Club, and Phi Delta Phi. He was remembered for giving many young local attorneys their start, among them U.S. Senator Harry Reid and Nevada Governor Bob Miller, and was regarded as one of Nevada's most distinguished attorneys. He died March 23, 1998, at his Las Vegas home at the age of 77.