Biography
Valerie J. Vollmar writes and lectures extensively in the fields of estate planning, elder law and physician-assisted suicide. Her will and trust forms have been used widely by Oregon lawyers since 1984. Her physician-assisted death Web site is one of the most frequently visited sites on the topic. She is co-author of a trusts and estates casebook published in 2003 by West Group.
Professor Vollmar is an Academic Fellow of the American College of Trust and Estate Counsel and was the founding chair of the Oregon State Bar’s Elder Law Section. She is former chair of the Oregon State Bar’s Estate Planning and Administration Section and has served on the executive committees of the Taxation Section and the Business Law Section. She served as co-chair of a committee whose work led to adoption of the Oregon Uniform Trust Code in 2005.
A 1975 graduate of Willamette University College of Law, Professor Vollmar was comment editor for the Willamette Law Journal. From 1975 to 1977, she served as a judicial clerk for the Honorable Otto R. Skopil Jr., chief judge of the United States District Court for the District of Oregon. In 1977, she entered private practice and later became a partner with Clark, Marsh, Lindauer, McClinton & Vollmar in Salem, Ore. She came to Willamette University College of Law in 1984 as a visiting professor and joined the College of Law faculty in 1985.
She currently teaches Trusts & Estates and Will & Trust Drafting, as well as the Trusts & Estates Clinic in the Clinical Law Program. She also has taught Federal Estate & Gift Tax, Elder Law, Property, and Professional Responsibility. She received the Oregon State Bar President’s Membership Service Award in both 1989 and 2005, as well as Willamette University’s Jerry E. Hudson Award for Excellence in Teaching in 1999.