Thomas Williams serves as the University System Office of the General Counsel liaison to the University of Missouri Research Reactor. He works onsite at MURR to provide legal counsel across its activities, including commercial contracting with clients and vendors, research agreements, real estate, employment matters, and partners with the Regulatory Affairs team in advancing regulatory compliance and nuclear safety culture. He also advises the NextGen MURR program team in concert with other subject matter expects in the Office of General Counsel.
Prior to joining the University System, he served in increasingly senior roles as in-house counsel for publicly traded and privately held companies within the financial services, technology, and manufacturing sectors. In each of these settings, he held primary responsibility for mergers, acquisitions, and divestitures as well as assisting with or managing complex commercial transactions and corporate governance. He began his career as a litigator in Delaware, representing companies, boards of directors, and minority shareholders in disputes before the Delaware Court of Chancery and Delaware Supreme Court. He also spent several years practicing at a law firm in Iowa City, representing business, institutional, and other clients in transactional matters and litigation before Iowa state courts and administrative agencies. Prior to law school, he was a management trainee and an environmental, health, and safety coordinator for a national uniform and facility services company.
He graduated with distinction from the University of Iowa College of Law where he was a member of the Journal of Corporation Law and a finalist in the Stephenson Trial Advocacy Competition. He completed his undergraduate studies at Augustana College in Rock Island, IL, where he graduated summa cum laude with a major in political science and minor in economics.