Today, the State Bar Association turns the tables on Udall by bestowing the Distinguished Career Award to the longtime Tucson attorney at a gala during its annual conference at The Westin La Paloma Resort & Spa.

"Somebody said to me, 'Do you have some disease that you're not telling us about that means you're not going to be here very long?' " Udall, 76, says.

"I'm not sure why they're giving this to me," Udall says. "But it's nice to hear these things when you're alive."

The Udalls have been intertwined with Arizona history for generations.

Not only did Burr Udall's big brothers make names for themselves in national politics - the late Morris K. Udall as a U.S. representative and presidential candidate; Stewart Udall as Secretary of the Interior appointed by President Kennedy - but his father and uncle were Arizona Supreme Court justices and his sister, Elma, played a role in the development of the nuclear bomb, as well as international espionage.

Several Arizona landmarks are named for Udall's ancestors, including Lee's Ferry and Jacobs Lake.

Though his family ties make for good storytelling - how many people can joke about being related to someone executed for a Utah massacre? - it's Udall's 51 years of being an attorney specializing in insurance defense litigation that brings the newest honor to the family.

"I don't think of myself as anybody important," Udall says in a conference room at his downtown law firm, Chandler & Udall. "I think I have a reputation as a good lawyer. I'm ethical and I'm honest and I'm very proud of that."

In 1959, when Udall had been a lawyer for only a handful of years and his brothers had been attorneys for more than a decade, a neighbor asked Levi Udall which son was the best lawyer - Morris or Stewart.

"Neither," Levi Stewart Udall said. "Burr."

Burr Udall didn't hear that story until years after his father died, but it gives him obvious pleasure to recall it.

He was born David Burr Udall on Jan. 20, 1929 - his father's 38th birthday.

"When he was mad at me, he'd say I was the worst birthday present he ever had," Udall says.

"Nobody calls me David. David is my grandfather. Davids are a dime a dozen in my family."

He was named Burr after one of his father's friends, a rancher in St. Johns, not because of the short-cropped haircut he's worn for decades.

"Probably 50 percent of the lawyers in Tucson think Burr is my nickname," he says.

Udall started out studying accounting at the University of Arizona, but couldn't imagine spending his life crunching numbers.

When his father suggested law school, Burr's response was: "Every Udall I know is a lawyer."

But in those days, Udall says, all it took to get a law degree was a three-year investment in classes - no test - and a $35 enrollment fee. Thus, another attorney came into the Udall family.

"I like the interaction with other lawyers and clients," he said. "I like trying cases.

"What we do, every week, every month, every year we get entirely different cases. It keeps me young."

He doesn't intend to retire.

"I still think that I have something to offer down here," Udall says. "One thing about being a lawyer, it isn't physically demanding. But mentally it still is.

"If I quit, one month later my wife would probably shoot me, and I wouldn't blame her," joked Udall, whose youngest daughter, Laura, is a top criminal defense attorney here. "No, retirement never crossed my mind."