Prof. Willie van der Westhuizen

Professor Willie van der Westhuizen used to head the Trust Law and Estate Planning Department of the firm for 27 years, but he is still very active as a consultant to the firm. 

Prior to joining Millers in 1992, Willie was a legal advisor to the Johannesburg City Council, practised as an attorney and was involved in an estate planning bureau at Potchefstroom University (Now NWU), before becoming a professor in Mercantile Law and Dean of the Law Faculty of the University of the North (now Limpopo). His practice consists of advising clients (including practitioners) on wills and the creation, variation, analysis and terminating of various kinds of trusts and how it should form part of a holistic estate plan, including business protection and family relationship plans. Willie also travels substantially every year and presents seminars, lectures and talks on trusts and its good governance and holistic estate planning at various centres around the country and abroad.

Willie also currently serves as an extraordinary professor in the Private Law Department at the Free State University and their School for Financial Planning. He was a co-presenter of the diploma in tax practice offered by the Law Society of South Africa and accredited by the University of Johannesburg. He is also co-author of inter alia “Wills & Trusts”, a leading publication on the law of trusts and wills in South Africa as well as co-author of “Estate Planning & Fiduciary Services Guide” and also “Butterworths Forms & Precedents (Estates)” all three publications serving as working tools for practitioners in South Africa and Namibia.