Greg Fullem has earned a reputation for excellence, thoroughness and diplomacy in helping clients address complex natural resources and environmental issues. He handles diverse real estate matters, ‎with a focus on forest products and timberlands transactions and large scale ‎conservation projects.

Clients rely on Greg’s legal and industry knowledge for successful acquisitions and dispositions  of real property (including commercial properties, farms and ranches), leasing transactions, access agreements, credit facilities, ‎long-term timber and fiber supply agreements, “working forest” and other conservation ‎easements, forest carbon transactions and numerous day-to-day land management ‎operational issues. He represents timber investment ‎management organizations, industrial timberland owners, ‎lenders, land trusts and other non-profit entities, developers of ‎biomass, geothermal and solar energy projects, commercial real estate developers, forest products manufacturers, ports and local ‎governments.

An appetite for complexity

Greg routinely acts as lead counsel on high-profile, complex transactions with intricate deal structures and issues, and relishes crafting creative documents and solutions. He focuses on crux issues in transactions and brings an insightful, measured approach to even the most perplexing problems.

Industry commitment

Greg is currently on the Board of Directors of the World Forestry Center, and is the lead Schwabe lawyer working on sustainable forestry, land stewardship and rural development issues out of the firm’s office in Wallowa County, Oregon. He is the principal author of the “Forestland, Timber and Forest Products” chapter in the Oregon State Bar Oregon Real Estate Deskbook.

International experience

During a two-year hiatus from Schwabe, Greg served as legal counsel ‎for the State of Koror, Republic of Palau in Micronesia. While in Palau, he drafted ‎environmental, natural resources and other laws and regulations, and handled various ‎real estate, marine and other natural resources matters. He also argued before the Supreme Court of the Republic of Palau and acted as ‎general counsel for Koror State.

Experience

• Represented a timber investment management company in the acquisition of 1.55 million acres of timberland located in Texas, Louisiana, Georgia and Alabama, involving approximately 1.38 million fee acres and approximately 175,000 acres of leasehold property.
• Served as lead counsel for a timber investment management company in the disposition of 111,967 acres of timberlands in Mendocino County, California and related rights and property.
• Served as real estate and natural resources counsel for North America’s largest manufacturer of hardwood plywood and hardwood veneer products, which operates facilities throughout the United States and Canada.
• Counseled an Oregon port regarding its acquisition of a railroad, and the real estate, natural resources and financing aspects of its negotiations with the developer of a high-profile liquefied natural gas facility and related marine terminal.
• Represented a conservation entity that owns a 50,000 acre tract in the redwood region in California regarding its sale of a complex working forest conservation easement, and its subsequent verification and disposition of a significant volume of forest carbon credits under both the voluntary Climate Action Reserve carbon market and the economy-wide carbon cap-and-trade market in California administered by the California Environmental Protection Agency Air Resources Board.
• Advised the developer of a 205 MW, 89-turbine wind farm built on 9,500 acres near Goldendale, Washington. At the time, the project was the largest public power initiated wind project in the United States, developed in part by four consumer-owned Washington public utilities.
• Handled real estate and financing matters with respect to the development of a 22-megawatt geothermal plant in Neal Hot Springs in Eastern Oregon.
• Served as lead counsel on numerous large-scale conservation easement transactions in Oregon, Washington and California, on behalf of both land trusts and industrial timberland owners, including transactions involving Forest Legacy Program “working forest” conservation easements on the southern slopes of Mt. St. Helens in Skamania County, Washington, on the Olympic Peninsula in Washington State and in Humboldt County, California.
• Served as lead counsel for acquisition, funding and operational issues related to a small diameter log mill facility and accompanying integrated biomass energy campus in Wallowa, Oregon.
• Served as lead counsel on the development, finance and leasing of a 70,000 square foot office project in Northeast Portland, together with a public courtyard.
• Represented a timber investment management organization regarding its sale to a third-party commercial timberlands owner of approximately 176,000 acres of timberland interests comprised of fee, timber deeds, and leaseholds, located in upstate New York, Texas, Oklahoma, Arkansas, Alabama and Louisiana.

Awards

• Best Lawyers in America Award: Real Estate Law and Timber Law (2021-2023)
• Ranked Real Estate Lawyer in Oregon, Chambers USA (2018-2022)
• Ranked for Environmental Lawyers in Oregon, Chambers USA (2017)
• U.S. News & World Report – Best Lawyers, “Law Firm of the Year” in Timber Law, Team Member (2015 and 2018)
• U.S. News & World Report – Best Lawyers, National Tier 1 Firm in Timber Law, Team Member (2015-2018)

News

Seminars & Speaking Engagements

Publications

Principal Author, “Forestland, Timber and Forest Products,” Oregon Real Estate Deskbook.

Community Activities

• World Forestry Center, Board of Directors, Vice Chairman
• Pittock Mansion Society, Board of Directors, Former Member
• Pittock Mansion Society, Preservation Committee, Former Chair
• Oregon Sports Union, Inc., Board of Directors, Former Member
• Early Head Start Family Center of Portland, Board of Directors, Former Member
• East County Legal Clinic, Pro Bono Volunteer Attorney

Services