Biography
Samuel C. Thompson, Jr. joined Penn State Law in July 2007 as a professor of law and director of Penn State’s Center for the Study of Mergers and Acquisitions. The Center examines corporate, securities, tax, antitrust, and other legal and economic issues that can arise in mergers and acquisitions (M&A).
Before joining Penn State, Sam was a professor of law at the UCLA School of Law and director of the UCLA Law Center for the Study of Mergers and Acquisitions. Sam formerly served as dean of the University of Miami School of Law and has been (1) a professor and distinguished visiting professor at the University of Virginia School of Law, and (2) the Jacquin D. Bierman Visiting Professor of Taxation at Yale Law School. He started his teaching career at the Northwestern University School of Law. His teaching and scholarly interests focus on all areas of M&A as well as corporate tax and international tax. He is the author of numerous books and articles, including Business Planning for Mergers and Acquisitions, a law school casebook that is in its fourth edition.
Sam has, throughout his career, held a number of legal positions, including: head of the tax department of Schiff Hardin LLP in Chicago; tax policy advisor, on behalf of the U.S. Treasury Tax Assistance Office, to the South African Ministry of Finance in Pretoria, South Africa; Attorney Fellow in the Securities and Exchange Commission’s M&A office; consultant on merger and acquisition issues to the Federal Trade Commission; professor in residence at the European Commission’s Antitrust Merger Taskforce in Brussels; and consultant, on behalf of the International Monetary Fund, to several Caribbean countries regarding the potential harmonization of their Takeover Laws. On several occasions, Sam has testified about tax policy before the U.S. House of Representatives Committee on Ways and Means.
Sam has his (1) J.D. from the University of Pennsylvania School of Law; (2) LL.M., in Taxation, from the NYU School of Law; (3) M.A. in Business and Applied Economics jointly from the University of Pennsylvania Graduate School of Economics and the Wharton School; and (4) B.S. from West Chester University.