Jason Voelker

Jason Voelker (born 18 December 1981) is the founder and CEO of Preferred Paralegals, a legal services company headquartered in San Francisco, California. Preferred Paralegals operates in the United States and several foreign countries.
Voelker became well known as a jailhouse lawyer who served nine years in prison after being convicted of aiding and abetting a robbery with Tristan Harvey. Harvey is the son of Larry Harvey, the founder of the Burning Man festival.
While incarcerated, Voelker was hired to run the law libraries at Folsom State Prison and the Sierra Conservation Center, and became an effective civil litigator and habeas corpus practitioner. Voelker successfully challenged prison conditions, secured the early release of several prisoners, obtained monetary damages against the Prison Industry Authority, and briefed cases in both the California and United States Supreme Courts.
Upon his release in 2012, Voelker was hired by the County of Marin to work in its law library. While there, he was appointed ex-officio member of the county board of trustees and later became the youngest executive director in the county's history. However, when Voelker’s criminal past became public, the county and the superior court paid Voelker a confidential severance and asked him to resign his position.
A lawsuit was later filed by Bill Hale, a public policy watchdog. The suit accused the county of violating the state’s open meeting laws in its handling of Voelker and for privately paying public funds to Voelker in exchange for his resignation.
The case was subsequently transferred to Tani Cantil-Sakauye, Chief Judge of the California Supreme Court, after all 13 judges on the Marin County bench recused themselves. Because of the recusals, the case was transferred to the Alameda County Superior Court where the case was dismissed and Voelker was ultimately allowed to keep all funds paid to him by the county.
Voelker currently serves as a trustee of a land trust in Northern California and oversees the general operations of Preferred Paralegals.

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