Roy C. Williams was born in Gulfport, Mississippi in 1939. He attended the University of Mississippi, receiving a B.A. Degree in Accounting in 1961 and a Juris Doctorate Degree in 1966. He is admitted to practice law in all courts in Mississippi including the Mississippi Supreme Court as well as all federal courts in the state, in addition to the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals, the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals and the United States Supreme Court. While in college, Mr. Williams was a member of Omicron Delta Kappa Leadership Fraternity and Phi Delta Phi Legal Fraternity. Also, while in law school, he served as a staff member and comment editor of the Mississippi Law Journal. Mr. Williams served as Public Defender for the 19th Judicial District in 1967-68. He is a member of the Jackson County, Mississippi State and American Bar Associations, having served as a Commissioner of Continuing Legal Education, and as a member of the Bar Admissions Committee of the Mississippi State Bar on the Character and Fitness Subcommittee. Mr. Williams is a member of the Association of Defense Trial Attorneys and the Mississippi Defense Lawyers Association (served as President, 1985-86), Defense Research Institute (State Chairman, 1982-85) and has been named as an Advocate to the American Board of Trial Advocates. Mr. Williams is a Fellow of the Mississippi Bar Foundation and a member of the American College of Trial Lawyers. Mr. Williams has a general practice with an emphasis in hospital law, medical malpractice, insurance bad faith defense, other insurance defense, legal malpractice and products liability. Having been retained by Johns-Manville in the Mid 1970's to defend asbestos cases, Mr. Williams has spent twenty (20) years in this mass tort litigation. He has served as Liaison Counsel or Co-Liaison Counsel for the Defense group since the beginning of the litigation and has maintained a depository of all important documents accumulated over the course of the defense effort. Mr. Williams tried to verdict the first asbestos case in Mississippi, and has since tried other cases to verdict, the last case taking about four and one-half months to complete. Most of the remaining time spent by Mr. Williams is in the health care area. Mr. Williams holds Martindale-Hubbell's highest rating.