Thomas R. Frantz

Tom Frantz is chief executive officer of Williams Mullen. Drawing on his tax background, Mr. Frantz also maintains a corporate practice representing multi-national corporations, handling major mergers and acquisitions and advising corporations on a variety of legal matters.

Tom Frantz is chief executive officer of Williams Mullen. Drawing on his tax background, Mr. Frantz also maintains a corporate practice representing multi-national corporations, handling major mergers and acquisitions and advising corporations on a variety of legal matters.

Before joining the firm, Mr. Frantz was an original principal with Clark & Stant, which merged with Williams Mullen in 1999. He became general counsel to Tidewater Health Care, Inc., the parent company of Virginia Beach General Hospital, in 1989. To service this client and other health care organizations, he established Clark & Stant’s Health Care Practice Group.

A frequent lecturer, Mr. Frantz has spoken about tax and corporate law at the Tax Conferences of the College of William & Mary, Old Dominion University and the University of Virginia and to numerous regional and national professional groups, including attorneys, accountants, life insurance underwriters, health care providers and bankers. He is admitted before the U.S. Tax Court, the U.S. Supreme Court, the United States Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals and all Virginia courts.

Mr. Frantz is a member of the American College of Tax Counsel, the American College of Trust and Estates Counsel, the Virginia Bar Association’s Taxation Section, the American Association of Attorney CPAs, the Virginia Society of CPAs, and the American Academy of Hospital Attorneys. He also is a member of the Corporate, Banking and Business Law, Taxation and Health Care Sections of the American Bar Association. Mr. Frantz is a past president of the Hampton Roads Tax Forum and is a director of the William & Mary Annual Tax Conference. He is listed in three categories in The Best Lawyers in America for each of its 25 years of publication and was named the Best Lawyers’ 2011 Norfolk Area Corporate Lawyer of the Year and 2012 Norfolk Area Mergers & Acquisitions Lawyer of the Year. He has also been named to Virginia Business magazine’s list of “Legal Elite.” Mr. Frantz has been recognized as a leading Corporate/M&A attorney in the U.S. by Chambers USA and named a “Super Lawyer” for Business/Corporate by Virginia Super Lawyers magazine. Virginia Super Lawyers magazine has listed Mr. Frantz as one of the "Top 50 Attorneys in Virginia" every year since 2006 and in 2008 he was listed as one of the “Top 10 Attorneys in Virginia.” In addition, Martindale Hubbell has rated Mr. Frantz an AV attorney, its highest rating available.

Long active in numerous civic and educational organizations, Mr. Frantz is a former chairman of the board of Cape Henry Collegiate School and the Virginia Beach Foundation. He serves on the executive committee and is past chairman of the board of the Hampton Roads Partnership and the Virginia Aquarium and Marine Science Center Foundation. He is on the executive committee and is the former president of Virginia Beach Vision. He is a member of the board of directors and the executive committee of the Neptune Festival, having served as King Neptune in 1996. He was appointed by Governor Bob McDonnell to serve on the College of William & Mary board of visitors. Additionally, Mr. Frantz serves on the board of the Mason School of Business at the College of William & Mary and the advisory board of the William & Mary Business Law Review. In 2008, he became a member of the board of Eastern Virginia Medical School. He was appointed by Governor Mark R. Warner to the Hampton Roads Sports Facility Authority in 2003 and was honored by the Virginia Beach Jaycees as the 2004 First Citizen of Virginia Beach. In 2010 he received the VOLUNTEER Hampton Roads’ Lenora Mathews Lifetime Achievement Award for his outstanding leadership in community service.

Mr. Frantz graduated from the College of William & Mary with an accounting degree in 1970 and from the Marshall Wythe School of Law in 1973. He obtained his license as a Certified Public Accountant in 1973 and received his Masters in Law and Taxation from William & Mary in 1981.