Thomas A. Balmer

Justice Balmer was born on January 31, 1952,[1] in Longview, Washington, a community located on the Columbia River and the border of Oregon.[2] He attended and graduated from high school in Portland, Oregon, at the now defunct Jackson High School.[3][4]

Balmer graduated from Oberlin College in Oberlin, Ohio in 1974, earning a Bachelor of Arts degree and earned High Honors.[2] Balmer then attended law school, graduating from the University of Chicago Law School in 1977.[2]

Balmer began his public legal career as a trial lawyer for the U.S. Department of Justice from 1979 to 1980.[5] Working in Washington, D.C., he was part of the Antitrust Division.[5] Balmer taught at Lewis & Clark Law School from 1983 to 1984, and again from 1990 to 1992 as an adjunct professor.[5] From 1986 to 1987 he was the chairperson of the Oregon State Bar antitrust law section, and in 1992 to 1993 he was chairperson of the Multnomah County Legal Aid Service’s Board of Directors.[2]

Later he served as a deputy attorney general for the state of Oregon from 1993 to 1997.[5] While there he worked for the Oregon Attorney General, Ted Kulongoski.[6] Balmer is a former partner of Ater Wynne LLP, focusing on antitrust law, government regulations, and commercial litigation.[5] In 1997, he became a member of the board of directors for Classroom Law Project, and from 2000 to 2001, he served as an adjunct professor of political science at Lewis & Clark College, 2000-2001.[5]

On September 20, 2001 Balmer was appointed to the Oregon Supreme Court, becoming the 96th justice.[7] Governor John Kitzhaber appointed Balmer to replace Ted Kulongoski (whom Balmer worked for at the Oregon Department of Justice) after Kulongoski resigned to campaign for governor. (Kulongoski later won the election to replace Kitzhaber.) Balmer was then elected to a full six-year term in 2002 and re-elected to new terms in 2008 and 2014.[7] In 2005, he joined the board of directors to the Oregon Law Institute.[5] Balmer is currently a member of the U.S. District Court’s Indigent Representation Committee.[2] He won re-election to a new six-year term in 2008.[7] In July 2009, he was named one of five finalists for two open positions on the federal district court in Oregon,[8] but was not chosen as a nominee for the federal court.

In January 2012 it was announced that Balmer's fellow justices had selected him to become the new Chief Justice of the court, from May 1, 2012, replacing Paul De Muniz.[9] Martha Lee Walters succeeded Balmer as Chief Justice on July 1, 2018, although Balmer will continue to serve as an associate justice.[10]