This Week's Ten Most Popular TaxProf Blog Posts

1. Inside Higher Ed, A ‘Bank Run’ At Notre Dame Law School
2. Amanda Runyon (Pennsylvania), Leslie Street (William & Mary), & Amanda Watson (Houston), U.S. News Ranking Metrics Stifle Law Libraries, Tie Hands of Law Schools
3. Bloomberg Law, Bar Exams May Soon Be Easier To Pass, As States Eye Changes
4. Karen Sloan (Law.com), Law Student Climate Change Activists Target Gibson Dunn Law Firm
5. Bryan Camp (Texas Tech), Lesson From The Tax Court: S Corp Payments To Sole Shareholder Were Wages
6. Columbia Daily Tribune, University Of Missouri Faculty Upset About Use Of Data In Promotion And Tenure
7. Wall Street Journal op-ed, Income Inequality In America Is Lower Than It Was 50 Years Ago
8. Bryan Camp (Texas Tech), Lesson From The Tax Court: Passport Revocation Act Differs From Codification
9. U.S. News, 2022 Omnibus Specialty Rankings
10. U.S. News, 2022 Omnibus Specialty Rankings v. Overall Rankings

Jones Day Nabs NINE U.S. Supreme Court Law Clerks From October Term 2019-20 With $400,000 Bonuses

Jones Day Adds Nine U.S. Supreme Court Clerks From October Term 2019:

The global law firm Jones Day has announced that nine former U.S. Supreme Court clerks from October Term 2019 have joined the Firm as associates in the Firm's Issues & Appeals Practice. Jones Day has recruited 64 U.S. Supreme Court clerks since October Term 2011.

"As we continue to be a leading destination for lawyers who want to work on important, cutting-edge legal issues from the earliest stages of litigation through appeal, we welcome this year's class of clerks, who join five different Jones Day offices," said Traci L. Lovitt, leader of Jones Day's Issues & Appeals Practice. "These talented lawyers have a terrific understanding of case law, and their analytical skills and deep insights into the latest legal developments will be of great value to clients."

The new arrivals, office locations, the Justices for whom they clerked, their law schools [Chicago (2), Duke, Harvard (3), Michigan, Notre Dame, Yale], and prior clerkships are as follows: ...

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7th Annual Parris Awards At Pepperdine Caruso Law

Congratulations to our student, staff, and faculty winners at THursday's 7th Annual Parris Awards at Pepperdine Caruso Law:

Student Awards

Evan T. Carthen 1L Award
Section A: Tyler Lisea
Section B: Tyra Jenkins
Section C: Susan Posluszny

Excellence in Service
Brynn Barton

Excellence in Professionalism
Gage Eller

Excellence in Peacemaking
Zino Osehobo

Excellence in Courage
Roxanne Swedelson
Sophie Sarchet

Excellence in Leadership
Zachary Carstens
Amy Jicha

Excellence in Character
Alexandra Boutelle

Pepperdine Award
Kelly Shea Delvac

Preceptor Award
Awards are also presented to alumni preceptors, who are paired with first-year students as mentors during their first year of law school

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Dorothy Brown: College Exacerbates The Racial Wealth Gap

Washington Post op-ed:  College Isn’t the Solution for the Racial Wealth Gap. It’s Part of the Problem, by Dorothy Brown (Emory):

Higher education is supposedly the ticket to a better future, and it usually translates to a larger salary regardless of race, according to a 2011 study from the Georgetown University Center on Education and the Workforce. But college does not pay off for Black students the way it does for White students. At virtually every step — from taking out loans to facing a racist job market to dealing with repayment plans — Black students and their families have disadvantages. As a result, the Black-White wealth gap widens.

Black college graduates have higher debt loads, on average, than White college graduates. Black debt rises over time, White debt diminishes. Upon graduation, the average Black graduate owes $23,400 vs. the White graduate’s $16,000, according to the Brookings Institution. Four years later, the gap triples. Even at the top end of the income spec­trum, Black students have higher student loans ($4,643, on average) than White students ($3,835), and Black parents take out larger loans to help pay for college ($3,303 vs. $1,903).

What accounts for that difference? First, it’s the schools students attend. Wealthier colleges, which can afford to award financial aid and scholarships, disproportionately admit White students: White students are almost five times as likely to go to a selective university than Black students, even when controlling for income. Meanwhile, a higher share (12 percent) of Black students attend for-profit colleges than very selective universities (9 percent), because online and part-time features allow them to work while getting their degrees. These schools usually do not award any financial aid and are in effect extremely expensive, given their low graduation rates

Another factor is the wealth disparity between Black and White families. Black college students are less likely than their White peers to receive tax-free gifts from their parents and grandparents. ...

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U.S. Department Of Education Terminates Florida Coastal Law School's Eligibility For Federal Student Loans; ABA Demands Teach-Out Plan

Statement of William E. Adams, Jr., Managing Director, ABA Section of Legal Education and Admissions to the Bar Regarding Florida Coastal School of Law:

On April 2, 2021, the ABA Section of Legal Education and Admissions to the Bar was informed of the U.S. Department of Education’s decision to end access to federal student financial aid for Florida Coastal School of Law effective April 1, 2021. While the Department of Education's action could have a bearing on the law school's ability to operate in compliance with the ABA Standards, Florida Coastal School of Law remains an ABA-approved law school. Under the ABA Standards and Rules of Procedure for Approval of Law Schools, formal Council action is required to withdraw a law school’s approval. The process for the law school to qualify for and maintain its access to federal student financial aid is a U.S. Department of Education process.

In the wake of the Department of Education’s decision, the ABA has directed Florida Coastal School of Law to file a teach-out plan.

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Weekly SSRN Tax Article Review And Roundup: Eyal-Cohen Reviews Measuring And Valuing Wealth For Federal Wealth Tax Reform

This week, Mirit Eyal-Cohen (Alabama; Google Scholar) reviews David Gamage (Indiana; Google Scholar), Ari Glogower (Ohio State; Google Scholar) and Kitty Richards (Independent), How to Measure and Value Wealth for a Federal Wealth Tax Reform, Roosevelt Inst. Issue Brief (2021):   

One of the most debated topic in the last decade is wealth inequality and the unequal distribution of assets among individuals in the U.S.. Wealth distribution becomes even more skewed when race and ethnicity are involved with (not surprisingly) a staggering racial wealth gap.

Recent proposals to reduce the wealth gap (such as those proposed by Senators Warren and Sanders) encountered the hurdle that fails to succeed any tax reform—overcoming valuation issues.  Our current income tax system is cash realization–based and thus mostly takes a deferral-based approach to valuation of wealth accumulation, which makes valuation of wealth rather challenging. If we truly want to make a progress on narrowing the income inequality gap and tax income and wealth of the highest income taxpayers in our society, we have to find efficient ways to overcome assessment difficulties, namely how to measure and value taxpayers’ wealth. This report—published under the auspices of the Roosevelt Institute, a think tank of experts on the American economy—is a practical attempt by Gamage, Glogower, and Richards to do just that.  

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Tax Policy In The Biden Administration

• Barron’s, Odds Improve for Global Deal on Corporate Tax as Yellen Signals Her Agreement on Principle
• Bloomberg, Millions Are Tumbling Out of the Global Middle Class in an Historic Setback
• Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, Corporate Rate Increase Would Make Taxes Fairer, Help Fund Equitable Recovery
• CNN, Raising This Tax Would Make the Ultra-Rich Pay Their Fair Share
• The Guardian, ‘Raise My Taxes – Now!’: The Millionaires Who Want to Give It All Away
• The Hill, Biden's Bet on Taxes

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Weekly Legal Education Roundup

• ABA Journal, As Florida Coastal tries to get student loan funds reinstated, ABA seeks teach-out plan
• Bloomberg Law, Bar Exams May Soon Be Easier to Pass, as States Eye Changes
• Vivia Chen (Bloomberg Law), Why U.S. News & World Report Failed Diversity 101
• Michael Thomas Colatrella Jr. (McGeorge), What I Learned about Teaching Law by Being an Art Student
• Scott Fruehwald (Legal Skills Prof Blog), The Many Problems of the U.S. News Law School Rankings. Is it time to end them?
• Steven K. Homer (New Mexico), Hierarchies of Elitism and Gender: The Bluebook and The ALWD Guide

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Next Week's Virtual Tax Workshops

Monday, April 12: Anne Alstott (Yale) will deliver the annual Richard Crawford Pugh Lecture on Tax Law & Policy at San Diego on Child Care Reform After the Pandemic: Towards a Public Option. If you would like to attend, please contact San Diego Law Events.

Thursday, April 15: Allison Christians (McGill; Google Scholar) will present The Case for a Sustainable Excess Profits Tax (with Tarcisio Diniz Magalhaes (Antwerp)) virtually at Indiana as part of its Tax Policy Colloquium Series. If you would like to attend, please contact Leandra Lederman.

Thursday, April 15: Daniel Hemel (Chicago; Google Scholar) will present Law and the New Dynamic Public Finance virtually at Duke as part of its Tax Policy Workshop Series. If you would like to attend, please contact  Richard Schmalbeck or Lawrence Zelenak.

Friday, April 16: Ronald J. Gilson (Columbia; Google Scholar) will present Value Creation by Business Lawyers: Legal Skills and Asset Pricing (with Michael S. Knoll (Penn) commentating) virtually at the Oxford-Virginia Legal Dialogs: Tax Meets Non-Tax Series. If you would like to attend, please contact Tsilly Dagan or Ruth Mason.

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2022 U.S. News Omnibus Specialty Rankings v. Overall Rankings

Following up on yesterday's post, 2022 U.S. News Omnibus Specialty Rankings:

Here are the law schools whose U.S. News Omnibus Specialty Ranking most exceeds their overall U.S. News Ranking:

	School	Specialty Rank	Overall Rank	Difference
1	American	22	81	+59
2	Suffolk	75	129	+54
2	UIC-John Marshall	93	147	+54
4	Seattle	74	126	+52
5	Rutgers	46	91	+45
6	Denver	34	78	+44
7	Pace	97	139	+42
8	Pacific	100	141	+41
8	Santa Clara	85	126	+41
10	Mitchell-Hamline	107	147	+40
11	Loyola-New Orleans	105	144	+39
12	Hofstra	81	119	+38
13	Baltimore	94	129	+35
14	Brooklyn	49	81	+32
14	UC-Hastings	18	50	+32
16	San Diego	57	86	+29
17	Loyola-Chicago	50	78	+28
18	Houston	33	60	+27
18	Loyola-L.A.	45	72	+27
20	Chicago-Kent	66	91	+25
20	Miami	47	72	+25
22	New York Law School	95	119	+24
22	San Francisco	123	147	+24
24	Georgia State	55	78	+23
24	Howard	68	91	+23
24	Indiana (McKinney)	88	111	+23
27	Syracuse	80	102	+22
28	DePaul	90	111	+21
28	Ohio State	19	40	+21
28	South Texas	126	147	+21
28	UC-Irvine	14	35	+21
32	Widener (DE)	127	147	+20
33	Stetson	92	111	+19
33	Tulane	41	60	+19
33	Vermont	128	147	+19
33	Univ. of Washington	26	45	+19
37	George Washington	9	27	+18
38	Temple	36	53	+17
39	Southwestern	131	147	+16
40	Case Western	58	72	+14
40	Fordham	21	35	+14
40	Georgetown	1	15	+14
40	South Carolina	82	96	+14
44	Willamette	135	147	+12
45	Golden Gate	136	147	+11
45	Gonzaga	118	129	+11
45	Maryland	39	50	+11
48	Quinnipiac	119	129	+10
49	Widener (PA)	138	147	+9
50	UNLV	52	60	+8

Here are the law schools whose U.S. News Omnibus Specialty Ranking most trails their overall U.S. News Ranking:

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24th Annual Critical Tax Theory Conference At UC-Irvine

UC-Irvine hosts the 24th Annual Critical Tax Theory Conference (program):

The Critical Tax Theory Conference has a long history of fostering the work of both established and emerging scholars whose research challenges and enriches the tax law and policy literature. Critical tax scholars question assumptions of objectivity in tax, as their work explores how tax law and policy impact historically marginalized groups. At a time when tax policy is once again at the forefront of politics and public discourse, the work of these and other critical tax scholars supports a more robust discussion of the role for tax law in current and future social and economic policy.

Panel #1: 

• Leslie Book (Villanova), Keith Fogg (Harvard) & Nina E. Olson (Center for Taxpayer Rights), Administrative Burdens, Sludge, and Individual Taxpayer Rights
• Michelle Layser (Illinois), Subsidizing Gentrification: A Spatial Analysis Of Place-Based Tax Incentives
• Nancy Shurtz (Oregon) & Esther Sherman, When We Breathe: Reinventing the EITC for a More Just and Caring World
• Moderator:  Mirit Eyal-Cohen (Alabama) 
• Commentators:   Joshua Blank (UC-Irvine) & Christine Kim (Utah) 

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LSAC: Law School Policies And Practices — Justice-Impacted Individuals

Elizabeth Bodamer & Debra Langer (LSAC), Justice-Impacted Individuals in the Pipeline: A National Exploration of Law School Policies and Practices:

Approximately one in three adults in the United States has some form of criminal record—similar to the ratio of adults with 4-year college degrees in the U.S. (Friedman, 2015). The wide reach of the criminal justice system, including police contacts, arrests, and incarcerations, is heavily concentrated in poor communities and communities of color. Therefore, it is important to examine barriers specific to justice-impacted individuals throughout the application, enrollment, and educational experience in order to ensure that policies and practices do not unintentionally serve as mechanisms of exclusion that disproportionally impact applicants of color and low-income applicants.

The Law School Admission Council (LSAC), in collaboration with the National Justice Impact Bar Association (NJIBA), developed and administered the 2020 Justice Impact Law School Survey to explore policies and procedures that specifically affect law schools' justice-impacted applicants and students, focusing on policies, practices, and services during the 2019-2020 academic year. Eighty-five schools from across all geographic regions of the U.S. completed some or all of the survey. The results from the survey provide an overview of current law school practices related to (a) recruitment and admission; (b) applicants, admission, and enrollment; (c) application review procedures; (d) student information and services, (e) employees and training; and (f) policies. The purpose of this report is to initiate a conversation about justice-impacted individuals as part of LSAC’s mission to promote equity in access to legal education and to support diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) efforts.

Key Survey Results

• Only 2 of 85 responding schools reported intentionally recruiting students who were justice-impacted.
• The majority of schools indicated that they require applicants to disclose felony convictions, misdemeanor convictions, felony charges, misdemeanor charges, arrests, juvenile convictions, juvenile charges, and juvenile arrests.mm

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Gender Equality, Taxation, And The COVID-19 Recovery

Yvette Lind (Copenhagen Business School; Google Scholar) & Åsa Gunnarsson (University of Umea), Gender Equality, Taxation, and the COVID-19 Recovery: A Study of Sweden and Denmark, 101 Tax Notes Int'l 581 (Feb. 1, 2021):

The impact of COVID-19 is at the moment undeniably extensive as the world faces the most severe recession in nearly a century. Economic emergency programs, the design and implementation of COVID-19 tax policies and subsequent state aid actions have been launched in many countries to mitigate the impact of the pandemic. Women have, in comparison to men, also reduced their hours of work to care for, and home school, children. Aggregating already existing problems associated to both the loss of paid work hours and to the gender-segregated allocation of unpaid hours for household work and caring. The sudden closure of childcare programs and schools in many countries has had a crucial impact for women whose labour force participation depends on these institutions. The possibility of several waves of the virus that could trigger additional childcare closures make it extremely likely that married women (in general when considering the current norm of heterosexual couples) in particular may be slower to re-enter the work force in the hope of protecting the (single-breadwinner) family income.

The ambition with this paper is to tackle the complexity of both new and old societal challenges for the realization of gender equality obligations through tax provisions and tax policies at the national level.

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Things They Don't Teach You In Dean School

I was ending a meeting with an alum in my yard and the development officer was taking our photo. We heard a rattle and thought it was the sprinklers coming on. Wrong:

 

Biden's Made In America Tax Plan

Treasury Department, The Made in America Tax Plan

• Bloomberg, Biden Tax Plan Seen Hitting Tech, Pharmaceutical Companies
• Bloomberg, Biden Tax Plan Targets Fossil Fuel Subsidies Worth $35 Billion
• New York Times, Biden and Democrats Detail Plans to Raise Taxes on Multinational Firms
• New York Times, Biden Can Go Bigger and Not ‘Pay for It’ the Old Way
• New York Times, Biden’s Tax Plan Aims to Raise $2.5 Trillion and End Profit-Shifting
• New York Times, Corporate Taxes Are Wealth Taxes
• New York Times, A Tax Change Is Coming, Maybe
• New York Times, What’s in Biden’s Tax Plan?
• New York Times, Yellen Calls For a Global Minimum Corporate Tax Rate.
• Penn Wharton, President Biden's $2.7 Trillion American Jobs Plan: Budgetary and Macroeconomic Effects
• Wall Street Journal, A 28% Tax Rate Will Cost Companies, but Not Equally
• Wall Street Journal, Biden Softens Tax Plan Aimed at Profitable Companies That Pay Little
• Wall Street Journal, How Bidenomics Seeks to Remake the Economic Consensus
• Wall Street Journal, Some Democrats Cool to Biden’s Plan to Boost Corporate Tax Rate
• Wall Street Journal editorial, Anatomy of a Biden Tax Hike
• Wall Street Journal op-ed (Janet Yellen), A Better Corporate Tax for America

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Cain: The Unfairness Of The Marriage Tax Penalty

Pat Cain (Santa Clara), The Unfairness of the Marriage Tax Penalty:

Wisconsin Republican U.S. Representative Glenn Grothman recently criticized the Covid-19 relief bill by pointing to the marriage penalty that is embedded in the earned income tax credit, the EITC. He then inexplicably used the penalty in the Democratic-backed bill to take a swipe at the Black Lives Matter movement, claiming they did not honor the traditional married family. Representative Grothman is just wrong about the BLM point. The group seeks to value all families, and there are many in all of our communities that do not fit the traditional married family model. On the other hand Representative Grothman is absolutely correct about the problem of the marriage penalty in our tax code.

Still, it doesn’t seem fair to lay the blame at the feet of the Democrats or attribute the problem to the Covid-19 relief bill, as though that is the law that created the problem. The marriage penalty has been lurking throughout the Internal Revenue Code for some time. Both Democrat and Republican administrations have contributed to the problem. Both parties have, at times, taken a stab at reducing the problem. But so far no one has succeeded. ...

How to Remedy the Marriage Penalty Problem

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Legal Education Needs A Wellness Reckoning

Bloomberg Law op-ed:  Legal Education Needs a Wellness Reckoning, by Janet Thompson Jackson (Washburn):

No one goes to law school with the expectation that their mental health and overall well-being will be significantly compromised during those three years. But, for a substantial number of law students, it is. It does not have to be this way.

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A ‘Bank Run’ At Notre Dame Law School

Update:  Karen Sloan (Law.com), A 'Thunderdome' Competition? Admitted Students Got Shut Out at This Law School Amid Deposit Frenzy

Inside Higher Ed, A ‘Bank Run’ at Notre Dame Law:

It was a banner year for law school applications. The number of applicants this year was up about 21 percent compared to last year, according to the Law School Admissions Council. Total applications were up 32 percent.

An increase that big can be tricky for an admissions department. Now, at least one law school has overadmitted its incoming class.

Admitted applicants to University of Notre Dame Law School were told upon acceptance that there were no reserved spaces for students. The deadline was April 15, but if the university received its maximum number of $600 deposits, the rest of the admitted students would be waitlisted.

On Tuesday, a few minutes before 11 a.m. Eastern time, Notre Dame sent those admitted students an email. Two-thirds of the seats had been claimed by deposits, a benchmark usually reached two to three days before the deadline. The email said Notre Dame would send another note when 80 percent of seats were reserved, and two more emails when 90 and 100 percent of seats were claimed.

Five hours later, 80 percent of spots were taken, Notre Dame told admits. One hour after that, at 5 p.m., Notre Dame told applicants there was no more time.

“We have now reached our target number of deposits,” the email said. “We have turned off our deposit forms to ensure that we do not overenroll.”

The incident, first reported in Above the Law, a website for legal news, has shaken prospective law students. Applicants who were waiting on offers from other schools, who weren’t checking their email or who couldn’t come up with $600 quickly saw their chance to attend Notre Dame Law School vanish, despite the fact that they were admitted. ...

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2022 U.S. News Omnibus Specialty Rankings

The new 2022 U.S. News Specialty Rankings include the rankings for 13 specialty programs at 193 law schools. Here are the Top 100 law schools, determined by giving equal weight to each of the 13 separate specialty rankings:

1. Business/Corporate Law
2. Clinical Law
3. Constitutional Law
4. Contracts/Commercial Law
5. Criminal Law
6. Dispute Resolution 
7. Environmental Law
8. Health Care Law
9. Intellectual Property Law
10. International Law
11. Legal Writing
12. Tax Law
13. Trial Advocacy

	School	1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9	10	11	12	13	Avg.
1	Georgetown	12	1	9	11	7	24	7	7	13	5	9	3	15	9.5
2	Stanford	3	15	3	5	4	13	10	7	1	10	114	11	42	18.3
3	NYU	3	4	3	7	1	32	4	45	3	1	68	1	67	18.4
4	Michigan	9	6	13	7	10	32	37	23	15	6	9	8	67	18.6
5	Northwestern	12	9	15	13	13	7	44	37	19	26	25	4	21	18.8
6	Harvard	1	24	1	2	2	1	7	7	19	2	159	8	30	20.2
7	UC-Berkeley	3	9	6	7	2	32	1	45	1	6	121	23	17	21.0
8	UCLA	8	24	9	13	10	32	4	32	19	14	100	8	7	21.5
9	George Washington	22	24	27	26	27	24	10	20	4	6	34	28	54	23.5
10	Duke	12	50	9	13	13	52	16	23	15	10	34	16	67	25.4
11	Virginia	9	56	8	7	4	32	30	41	19	10	80	4	61	27.8
12	Texas	17	40	9	11	17	19	30	29	26	18	68	16	67	28.2
13	Penn	3	32	15	5	7	32	48	20	13	14	68	21	105	29.5
14	UC-Irvine	44	6	20	34	27	24	32	37	19	22	9	6	105	29.6
15	Washington Univ.	25	9	20	23	30	19	48	29	44	22	80	28	19	30.5
16	Columbia	2	22	6	1	7	15	7	45	15	3	159	11	105	30.6
17	Yale	9	4	1	4	4	32	20	15	52	3	154	14	90	30.9
18	UC-Hastings	28	19	33	34	30	8	24	13	30	26	121	16	21	31.0
19	Ohio State	44	56	27	18	13	2	65	18	44	49	25	34	54	34.5
20	Boston Univ.	19	40	24	26	23	63	57	4	12	32	68	16	67	34.7
21	Fordham	18	19	33	23	18	17	65	77	19	18	100	39	8	34.9
22	American	70	3	52	56	23	63	37	11	8	6	61	53	12	35.0
23	Arizona State	48	56	35	45	30	13	20	16	71	32	3	28	67	35.7
24	Minnesota	19	32	27	18	18	48	24	20	38	29	46	25	124	36.0
25	Vanderbilt	12	40	17	17	13	32	15	32	26	22	121	39	105	37.8
26	Univ. of Washington	48	32	46	26	36	19	34	41	15	39	41	34	105	39.7
27	Boston College	36	24	35	34	50	41	24	41	33	35	46	14	105	39.8
28	North Carolina	28	50	20	18	18	77	37	37	52	58	9	25	90	39.9
29	Chicago	7	40	3	2	10	63	73	45	38	18	159	6	79	41.8
30	Cornell	16	50	13	13	22	45	65	77	38	13	61	28	105	42.0
31	William & Mary	36	74	18	26	18	52	57	66	52	29	46	53	42	43.8
32	UC-Davis	22	90	18	26	23	24	24	57	44	26	132	27	61	44.2
33	Houston	52	90	67	45	61	52	20	5	8	43	46	53	42	44.9
34	Denver	64	9	71	56	36	41	24	83	63	58	9	60	12	45.1
35	Emory	22	107	24	22	40	112	48	23	38	32	46	34	42	45.4
36	Temple	52	74	60	53	61	63	90	18	63	16	7	39	1	45.9
37	Georgia	28	24	35	41	40	87	82	41	75	18	68	39	30	46.8
38	Florida	28	90	46	34	50	24	20	57	52	49	121	2	42	47.3
39	Maryland	52	9	41	56	50	15	16	7	97	68	114	73	30	48.3
40	USC	19	79	27	23	40	24	65	45	63	49	68	23	105	48.5
41	Tulane	36	32	46	34	50	52	18	71	63	39	80	47	67	48.8
42	Arizona	52	64	35	56	40	77	32	45	75	35	21	60	67	50.7
43	Indiana (Maurer)	25	79	52	26	40	77	37	57	26	35	68	16	124	50.9
44	Wisconsin	36	56	27	26	30	41	42	45	85	35	100	53	90	51.2
45	Loyola-L.A.	52	99	60	62	36	48	90	57	30	92	46	11	4	52.8
46	Rutgers	64	15	52	68	60	52	73	37	85	49	9	85	42	53.2
47	Miami	48	24	46	56	50	102	48	77	63	29	80	28	42	53.3
48	Colorado	44	79	46	45	36	77	10	66	33	62	80	39	79	53.5
49	Brooklyn	36	24	41	34	27	87	121	71	75	49	34	60	42	53.9
50	Loyola-Chicago	60	74	67	79	81	45	111	3	44	68	25	47	15	55.3
51	Notre Dame	28	74	24	41	66	112	48	83	33	22	100	47	42	55.4
52	UNLV	73	40	67	45	66	5	73	32	71	110	1	60	79	55.5
53	Texas A&M	64	32	76	62	97	8	34	83	7	68	25	73	124	57.9
54	Wake Forest	52	107	52	41	30	112	48	27	102	86	5	68	28	58.3
55	Georgia State	60	40	46	68	66	95	82	1	63	92	100	39	24	59.7
56	Utah	44	64	60	53	30	112	10	32	33	58	80	60	142	59.8
57	San Diego	28	135	20	45	40	112	65	57	19	43	144	21	54	60.2
58	Case Western	78	56	52	74	77	77	57	11	52	16	80	95	67	60.9
59	Cardozo	64	40	41	45	23	8	127	83	10	49	132	68	105	61.2
60	Northeastern	89	22	83	109	50	63	90	5	38	78	25	114	42	62.2
61	Washington & Lee	36	64	60	34	50	52	90	45	85	39	100	34	124	62.5
62	Illinois	28	107	35	18	40	95	82	71	38	62	100	53	90	63.0
63	Alabama	60	50	27	26	40	87	65	71	114	78	132	39	36	63.5
64	Florida State	52	135	41	45	40	77	18	83	75	43	132	28	61	63.8
65	Iowa	28	90	35	41	40	112	121	66	52	43	46	47	124	65.0
66	Chicago-Kent	78	120	52	68	81	63	90	57	10	92	46	85	4	65.1
67	SMU	60	64	76	68	50	102	90	45	44	49	138	53	42	67.8
68	Howard	73	32	52	62	50	95	104	110	52	86	41	95	30	67.8
69	BYU	36	120	60	56	72	95	57	108	44	62	80	47	67	69.5
70	Seton Hall	78	56	71	79	77	87	82	13	90	78	61	60	90	70.9
71	Pittsburgh	78	99	71	62	61	112	90	29	44	43	68	47	124	71.4
72	Richmond	52	129	52	68	50	77	57	77	44	68	68	68	124	71.8
73	St. John's	78	90	67	87	61	24	136	71	75	68	46	114	30	72.8
74	Seattle	73	24	89	87	97	112	48	110	63	86	7	95	90	75.5
75	Suffolk	125	15	121	109	108	32	104	45	52	104	4	141	24	75.7
76	Villanova	70	64	76	68	91	112	90	110	52	92	41	34	90	76.2
77	Connecticut	64	90	60	62	66	102	73	45	90	58	80	68	142	76.9
78	Pepperdine Caruso	64	64	60	74	113	3	136	136	97	49	132	39	36	77.2
79	Tennessee	25	19	83	53	72	112	111	83	114	110	41	77	105	77.3
80	Syracuse	96	90	76	94	81	102	90	83	75	68	61	95	11	78.6
81	Hofstra	89	74	83	101	72	63	127	96	90	86	46	82	21	79.2
82	South Carolina	78	50	110	87	72	112	44	71	121	104	100	53	30	79.4
83	Oregon	78	120	76	62	81	12	10	182	121	68	1	60	162	79.5
84	Drexel	78	64	89	94	108	52	147	32	97	110	21	129	12	79.5
85	Santa Clara	89	107	89	79	81	77	111	123	4	39	100	68	90	81.3
86	Lewis & Clark	111	90	89	101	97	52	1	123	75	68	21	114	124	82.0
87	Michigan State	70	79	71	79	81	87	100	123	52	78	121	82	54	82.8
88	Indiana (McKinney)	89	129	89	79	97	112	82	16	102	68	16	77	124	83.1
89	St. Louis	96	56	83	74	97	112	136	2	90	100	80	77	90	84.1
90	DePaul	89	107	103	109	91	110	151	23	30	100	41	82	61	84.4
91	George Mason	36	129	41	45	81	100	136	108	26	78	159	73	90	84.8
92	Stetson	117	107	103	94	81	24	73	143	151	121	5	95	2	85.8
93	UIC-John Marshall	135	50	143	109	127	41	147	96	33	78	16	129	24	86.8
94	Baltimore	125	15	83	131	66	48	104	123	97	78	46	85	162	89.5
95	New York Law School	105	64	89	131	81	63	127	123	85	68	46	108	79	89.9
96	CUNY	117	1	103	109	61	77	57	104	137	104	46	187	67	90.0
97	Pace	125	79	121	131	113	63	1	83	137	78	144	77	24	90.5
97	SUNY-Buffalo	89	79	89	101	72	112	82	96	102	92	100	108	54	90.5
99	Penn State-Dickinson	96	79	103	94	97	87	82	66	109	62	80	108	124	91.3
100	Pacific	117	135	131	109	127	48	57	143	109	43	21	141	8	91.5

If anyone at a law school outside the Top 100 would like the data for their school's rank, email me.

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AI For Tax Analogies And Code Renumbering

Andrew Blair-Stanek (Maryland; Google Scholar) & Benjamin Van Durme (Johns Hopkins; Google Scholar), AI for Tax Analogies and Code Renumbering, 170 Tax Notes Fed. 1997 (Mar. 29, 2021):

Blair-Stanek and Van Durme present an artificial intelligence tool that can complete analogies in tax law and provide evidence-based guidance on how Congress can renumber IRC sections in future tax reform efforts.

Conclusion
We have described two limited applications of AI in tax law, but we and other researchers are pursuing many others. New models with millions of mathematical neurons approximating the neurons in the human brain promise much more power than the model we used here. Moreover, all AI models rely on data; having more data and higher-quality data is always better. The full Tax Analysts Federal Research Library, just released under an agreement between Tax Analysts and Deloitte Tax LLP, contains extensive, very high-quality tax law text. This combination of more powerful models with more and better data is reason for optimism that AI will result in many more tools to aid tax practitioners and policymakers.

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COVID-19 Blew Up The Bar Exam. Even Bigger Changes Are Coming.

Karen Sloan (National Law Journal), COVID-19 Blew Up the Bar Exam. Even Bigger Changes Are Coming.:

The first indication that COVID-19 would upend the bar exam status quo arrived March 22, 2020, in the form of a working paper penned by 11 legal academics and educational policy experts [The Bar Exam And The COVID-19 Pandemic: The Need For Immediate Action].

The paper argued that it would be unsafe—if not impossible—to administer the upcoming July bar exam in convention halls with hundreds of law graduates packed together. Instead, the academics urged bar exam authorities to rethink the exam and paths to attorney licensure and swiftly announce alternatives.

Their words proved prescient. One year into the COVID-19 pandemic, the bar exam looks wildly different in most of the country. Examinees log into the exam from their bedrooms, kitchens or wherever they can find some peace and quiet and a strong Internet connection. Facial recognition technology scans their pictures to ensure they are who they claim to be. And their computer cameras and microphones track and record them to ward off cheating.

The sudden shift to online bar exams—more than 30,000 people took the first-ever national remote bar exam in October—is the single biggest shakeup in the history of the attorney licensing test. But it won’t be the last. As bar examiners struggled over the past year to find safe ways to test law graduates, the national organization that designs the test was also finalizing a long-gestating overhaul of the exam’s content and format. If all goes according to plan, the National Conference of Bar Examiners will roll out a vastly different test in 2025 that better integrates the evaluation of legal knowledge with the skills new lawyers need to succeed.

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Dorothy Brown: ‘The System For Wealth Building Is Designed To Build White Wealth’

New York Magazine, Dorothy Brown: ‘The System for Wealth Building Is Designed to Build White Wealth’:

How often do you think about your taxes? Once a year, maybe, when it’s time to file, or when you got married, or when you bought a home? If you’re white, taxes are often an inconvenience at worst. The tax code may even benefit you when you get married and start filing a joint return. If you’re Black, says Emory University law professor Dorothy Brown, your story is likely different: The joint return is less likely to reward a marriage with a tax cut when two spouses of equal income work outside the home, something that’s more likely to be true of Black couples. That’s not an accident, she argues in her new book, The Whiteness of Wealth. Well-off, mostly white Americans litigated and lobbied their way into making sure the tax code protects their wealth. Black Americans, who typically lack family wealth, were left out and deliberately held back. They can’t catch up, and that’s the point. The system is working as designed for whom it was designed: white Americans.

In The Whiteness of Wealth, Brown brings the American tax code to life. Hands shape it and wield it like a shield in the defense of the most powerful among us. The tax code tells a story about American priorities. The news isn’t good, Brown writes, but there’s still time to change the future.

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Hemel Presents Regulation And Redistribution With Lives In The Balance Virtually Today At Toronto

Daniel Hemel (Chicago; Google Scholar) presents Regulation and Redistribution with Lives in the Balance, 88 U. Chi. L. Rev. ___ (2021), virtually at Toronto today as part of its James Hausman Tax Law and Policy Workshop Series:

A central question in law and economics is whether non-tax legal rules should be designed solely to maximize efficiency or whether they also should account for concerns about the distribution of income. This question takes on particular importance in the context of cost-benefit analysis. Federal agencies apply cost-benefit analysis when writing regulations that generate multibillion dollar impacts on the US economy and profound effects on millions of Americans’ lives. In the past, agency cost-benefit analyses typically have ignored the income-distributive consequences of those regulations. That may soon change: On his first day in office, President Biden instructed his Office of Management and Budget to propose procedures for incorporating distributive considerations into cost-benefit analysis, thus bringing renewed relevance to a long-running law-and-economics debate.

This article explores what it might mean in practice for agencies to incorporate distributive considerations into cost-benefit analysis.

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Shay Presents Applying Section 265 To Address An Opaque Foreign Income Subsidy Virtually Today At Boston College

Stephen Shay (Boston College; Google Scholar) presents Applying Section 265 to Address an Opaque Foreign Income Subsidy virtually at Boston College today as part of its Tax Policy Workshop Series hosted by Shu-Yi Oei, Jim Repetti, and Diane Ring:

This article considers whether gross income offset by deductions whose sole object is to exempt foreign income from U.S. tax (exemptive deductions), is a class of income wholly exempt from taxes for purposes of the deduction disallowance rule of Section 265(a)(1). The better analysis of the statute and regulation is that deductions (other than an exemptive deduction) allocable to income offset by an exemptive deduction are subject to disallowance under existing Code Section 265(a)(1). Allowing a U.S. shareholder deductions for expenses allocable to foreign income offset by an exemptive deduction would be an opaque subsidy for foreign investment. If permitted, the subsidy would advantage multinational over domestic businesses, shareholders over workers, and high income and foreign investors over other taxpayers.

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Law Student Climate Change Activists Target Gibson Dunn Law Firm

Karen Sloan (Law.com), Law Student Climate Change Activists Target Gibson Dunn:

Law Students for Climate Accountability on Wednesday launched its #DoneWithDunn campaign, sending a letter to the firm denouncing its representation of clients in the fossil fuel industry and demanding that it adopt standards governing what cases and clients it will forgo.

“We call on Gibson Dunn to commit to a publicly available ethical standard that articulates its protocol for representation of the fossil fuel industry,” the letter reads. “Diversity programs, pro bono, and in-office sustainability are all welcome but are insufficient as long as Gibson Dunn continues to perpetrate immense harm through its work for paying clients. There must be a line that Gibson Dunn will not cross.”

Gibson Dunn is now the second major law firm to be targeted by law students concerned with the role the legal industry plays in climate change. In late 2019 and early 2020, law students at Harvard, Yale, New York University and several other law campuses staged protests at recruiting receptions held by Paul, Weiss, Rifkind & Wharton, demanding that the firm stop representing ExxonMobil in a series of climate change lawsuits. Hundreds of law students signed a pledge that they would not work for the firm as long as ExxonMobil remains on its client roster. (At the time, Paul Weiss chairman Brad Karp stood by the firm’s work for the oil and gas giant, saying it’s “committed to the principle that we represent our clients and safeguard the rule of law zealously and to the best of our abilities.”)

The #DropExxon campaign galvanized law students across the country and led to the formation of Law Students for Climate Accountability, which now boasts members from more than 50 law schools. That group made a splash in October, when it unveiled the first-ever Law Firm Climate Change Scorecard.

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2022 U.S. News Trial Advocacy Rankings

The new 2022 U.S. News Trial Advocacy Rankings include the trial advocacy programs at 187 law schools (the faculty survey had a 56% response rate). Here are the Top 50:

Rank	Score	School
1	4.4	Temple
2	4.2	Baylor
2	4.2	Stetson
4	3.9	Chicago-Kent
4	3.9	Loyola-L.A.
4	3.9	South Texas
7	3.8	UCLA
8	3.7	Fordham
8	3.7	Pacific
8	3.7	Samford
11	3.6	Syracuse
12	3.5	American
12	3.5	Denver
12	3.5	Drexel
15	3.4	Georgetown
15	3.4	Loyola-Chicago
17	3.3	St. Mary's
17	3.3	UC-Berkeley
19	3.2	Campbell
19	3.2	Washington Univ.
21	3.1	Hofstra
21	3.1	Northwestern
21	3.1	UC-Hastings
24	3.0	Georgia State
24	3.0	Pace
24	3.0	Suffolk
24	3.0	UIC-John Marshall
28	2.9	Akron
28	2.9	Wake Forest
30	2.8	Georgia
30	2.8	Harvard
30	2.8	Howard
30	2.8	Maryland
30	2.8	South Carolina
30	2.8	St. John's
36	2.7	Alabama
36	2.7	Golden Gate
36	2.7	Mitchell-Hamline
36	2.7	Nova SE
36	2.7	Ohio Northern
36	2.7	Pepperdine Caruso
42	2.6	Brooklyn
42	2.6	Emory
42	2.6	Florida
42	2.6	Houston
42	2.6	Miami
42	2.6	Northeastern
42	2.6	Notre Dame
42	2.6	Quinnipiac
42	2.6	Rutgers
42	2.6	SMU
42	2.6	Stanford
42	2.6	William & Mary

2021 U.S. News Trial Advocacy Rankings

2022 U.S. News Specialty Rankings:

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2022 U.S. News Legal Writing Rankings

The new 2022 U.S. News Legal Writing Rankings include the legal writing programs at 176 law schools (the faculty survey had a 60% response rate). Here are the Top 50:

Rank	Score	School
1	4.3	Oregon
1	4.3	UNLV
3	4.1	Arizona State
4	4.0	Suffolk
5	3.9	Stetson
5	3.9	Wake Forest
7	3.8	Seattle
7	3.8	Temple
9	3.7	Denver
9	3.7	Drake
9	3.7	Georgetown
9	3.7	Michigan
9	3.7	North Carolina
9	3.7	Rutgers
9	3.7	UC-Irvine
16	3.6	Indiana (McKinney)
16	3.6	Marquette
16	3.6	Nova SE
16	3.6	UIC-John Marshall
16	3.6	Washburn
21	3.5	Arizona
21	3.5	Drexel
21	3.5	Lewis & Clark
21	3.5	Pacific
25	3.4	Arkansas-Little Rock
25	3.4	Duquesne
25	3.4	Loyola-Chicago
25	3.4	Northeastern
25	3.4	Northwestern
25	3.4	Ohio State
25	3.4	South Texas
25	3.4	Texas A&M
25	3.4	Texas Tech
34	3.3	Arkansas-Fayetteville
34	3.3	Brooklyn
34	3.3	Duke
34	3.3	Elon
34	3.3	George Washington
34	3.3	Mercer
34	3.3	Missouri-Kansas City
41	3.2	DePaul
41	3.2	Howard
41	3.2	Tennessee
41	3.2	Univ. of Washington
41	3.2	Villanova
46	3.1	Boston College
46	3.1	CUNY
46	3.1	Baltimore
46	3.1	Chicago-Kent
46	3.1	Emory
46	3.1	Hofstra
46	3.1	Houston
46	3.1	Iowa
46	3.1	Loyola-L.A.
46	3.1	Minnesota
46	3.1	New York Law School
46	3.1	St. John's
46	3.1	Touro
46	3.1	William & Mary
46	3.1	Wyoming

2021 U.S. News Legal Writing Rankings

2022 U.S. News Specialty Rankings:

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Appleby: Subnational Digital Services Taxation

Andrew D. Appleby (Stetson), Subnational Digital Services Taxation, 81 Md. L. Rev. ___ (2021):

Existing tax regimes fail to tax digital services appropriately. Digital services based on extracting and monetizing user data—most notably digital advertising—are particularly problematic because tax regimes do not adequately account for the enormous value derived from user data.

Internationally, taxing jurisdictions have recognized these failures and commenced a controversial push toward new digital services taxes or DSTs. Subnational taxing jurisdictions in the United States face the same issues and are searching for solutions.

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Bar Exams May Soon Be Easier To Pass, As States Eye Changes

Bloomberg Law, Bar Exams May Soon Be Easier to Pass, as States Eye Changes:

Several states say they could make their bar exams easier to pass as a way to address racial diversity problems and access-to-justice issues entrenched in the legal profession.

Their statements coincide with the first data from California, which permanently lowered its “cut score” last summer just incrementally—but saw significant changes in the racial make-up of those passing the test to become its newest lawyers.

Last week, Rhode Island became the first to follow suit in lowering the state’s cut score. Several others say they’ll soon be weighing similar reforms. ... Court officials from Texas, Arizona, and Michigan said they’re also monitoring efforts from a national testing group to modify the bar exam, with an eye toward eventual changes in their own states. ...

Several other states—including New York, Pennsylvania, Connecticut, North Carolina, and Utah—said they could consider lowering cut scores based on their own reviews and after studying how the moves play out elsewhere. Their answers came in response to questions from Bloomberg Law to bar exam authorities and top courts in the 50 states and Washington, D.C.

What California Found
Lowering exam passing scores even slightly could boost the ranks of Black and Hispanic attorneys, according to the data from the State Bar of California released on March 5.

The state found that lowering the cut score from by about 3.5%—from a score of 1,440 to 1,390—led to about a 15% higher passage rate than would have been the case had the cut score not been lowered, said California state bar spokeswoman Teresa Ruano.

Comparing results specifically for first-time test takers from the October 2020 exam—with California’s lower passing score—to the July 2019 test showed that 28.5% more Hispanics, 25.8% more Asians, 23.9% more Blacks, and 20.8% more Whites passed.

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Shanske: Agglomeration And State Personal Income Taxes

Darien Shanske (UC-Davis), Agglomeration and State Personal Income Taxes: Time to Apportion (With Critical Commentary on New Hampshire’s Complaint Against Massachusetts), 48 Fordham Urb. L.J. ___ (2021):

The Supreme Court is currently considering granting certiorari in New Hampshire v. Massachusetts. At issue is the State of New Hampshire’s (and its amici’s) claim that Massachusetts’s insistence on applying its income tax to residents of New Hampshire, who once commuted to work in Massachusetts but now work for the same businesses remotely in New Hampshire because of the COVID-19 pandemic, violates the Due Process Clause and dormant Commerce Clause. The claim is simple and seductive: if these New Hampshire residents barely leave their own homes, much less their state, how can it accord with due process for Massachusetts to tax them?

In this short colloquium essay, I make the following points about the merits of this case. (I think the case should be dismissed on procedural grounds, but believe the merits are important and will eventually be reached on a similar fact pattern.)

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Hickman Presents OIRA Review Of Tax Regulatory Actions Virtually Today At Florida State

Kristin Hickman (Minnesota; Google Scholar) presents An Overlooked Dimension to OIRA Review of Tax Regulatory Actions virtually at Florida State today as part of its Tax Workshop Speaker Series hosted by Jeffrey Kahn:

In April 2018, the Treasury Department and the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs (OIRA) signed a Memorandum of Agreement reversing an exemption and providing for the first time that significant tax regulatory actions would be subject to OIRA review under Executive Order 12866.  The transition to the Biden administration has raised questions whether the Memorandum of Agreement should be reversed and most tax rules and regulations again exempted from OIRA review.  Critiques of OIRA review in the tax context generally focus on disagreements over whether the benefit-cost analysis required by Executive Order 12866 is useful or should rely on different methodological assumptions.  This essay emphasizes instead the symbiotic relationship between OIRA review, benefit-cost analysis, and compliance with Administrative Procedure Act procedure and process requirements.  

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Buchanan Presents Social Security Is Fair to All Generations Virtually Today At Duke

Neil Buchanan (Florida; Google Scholar) presents Social Security is Fair to All Generations: Demystifying the Trust Fund, Solvency, and the Promise to Younger Americans virtually at Duke today as part of its Tax Policy Workshop Series hosted by Richard Schmalbeck & Lawrence Zelenak:

The Social Security system has come under attack for having illegitimately transferred wealth from younger generations to the Baby Boom generation. This attack is unfounded, because it fails to understand how the system was altered in order to force the Baby Boomers to finance their own benefits in retirement. Any challenges that Social Security now faces are not caused by the pay-as-you-go structure of the system but by Baby Boomers’ other policy errors, especially the emergence of extreme economic inequality since 1980. 

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Hierarchies Of Elitism And Gender: The Bluebook And The ALWD Guide

Steven K. Homer (New Mexico), Hierarchies of Elitism and Gender: The Bluebook and The ALWD Guide, 41 Pace L. Rev. 1 (2020):

Hierarchies persist in legal academia. Some of these, while in plain view, are not so obvious because they manifest in seemingly small, mundane choices. Synecdoche is a rhetorical device used to show how one detail in a story tells the story of the whole.

This Article examines hierarchies of elitism and gender through a lens of synecdoche. The focus is on the choice of citation guide. Even something as seemingly benign and neutral as choosing a citation guide can reveal hierarchies of elitism and gender bias in legal education and the legal profession. Put another way, the choice of citation guide exists in—is inextricably embedded in—structural hierarchies of the legal profession. This Article examines the ways the choice of a citation guide reinforces elitism and gender bias by examining the use of two common citation guides, The Bluebook and the ALWD Guide. The Bluebook was developed by law students engaged in prestige activities at top-ranked law schools and retains the traits of its birth. This is in contrast to the ALWD Guide, which was written by experienced, professional legal writing professors who have dedicated their careers to teaching lawyers how to practice law. The Article describes the ALWD Guide’s focus on educating students to be practitioners, and the role of elitism and gender bias in keeping the ALWD Guide from displacing The Bluebook, despite The Bluebook’s well-documented deficiencies in training attorneys.

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2022 U.S. News International Law Rankings

The new 2022 U.S. News International Law Rankings include the international law programs at 185 law schools (the faculty survey had a 56% response rate). Here are the Top 50:

Rank	Score	School
1	4.7	NYU
2	4.5	Harvard
3	4.4	Columbia
3	4.4	Yale
5	4.3	Georgetown
6	4.1	American
6	4.1	George Washington
6	4.1	Michigan
6	4.1	UC-Berkeley
10	4.0	Duke
10	4.0	Stanford
10	4.0	Virginia
13	3.9	Cornell
14	3.8	Penn
14	3.8	UCLA
16	3.6	Case Western
16	3.6	Temple
18	3.5	Chicago
18	3.5	Fordham
18	3.5	Georgia
18	3.5	Texas
22	3.4	Notre Dame
22	3.4	UC-Irvine
22	3.4	Vanderbilt
22	3.4	Washington Univ.
26	3.3	Northwestern
26	3.3	UC-Davis
26	3.3	UC-Hastings
29	3.2	Miami
29	3.2	Minnesota
29	3.2	William & Mary
32	3.1	Arizona State
32	3.1	Boston Univ.
32	3.1	Emory
35	3.0	Arizona
35	3.0	Boston College
35	3.0	Indiana (Maurer)
35	3.0	Wisconsin
39	2.9	Santa Clara
39	2.9	Tulane
39	2.9	Univ. of Washington
39	2.9	Washington & Lee
43	2.8	Florida State
43	2.8	Houston
43	2.8	Iowa
43	2.8	Pacific
43	2.8	Pittsburgh
43	2.8	San Diego
49	2.7	Brooklyn
49	2.7	Cardozo
49	2.7	Florida
49	2.7	Florida Int'l
49	2.7	Ohio State
49	2.7	Pepperdine Caruso
49	2.7	Rutgers
49	2.7	SMU
49	2.7	USC

2021 U.S. News International Law Rankings

2022 U.S. News Specialty Rankings:

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2022 U.S. News Intellectual Property Law Rankings

The new 2022 U.S. News Intellectual Property Law Rankings include the intellectual property law programs at 187 law schools (the faculty survey had a 65% response rate). Here are the Top 50:

Rank	Score	School
1	4.6	Stanford
1	4.6	UC-Berkeley
3	4.3	NYU
4	4.0	George Washington
4	4.0	New Hampshire
4	4.0	Santa Clara
7	3.9	Texas A&M
8	3.8	American
8	3.8	Houston
10	3.7	Cardozo
10	3.7	Chicago-Kent
12	3.6	Boston Univ.
13	3.5	Georgetown
13	3.5	Penn
15	3.4	Columbia
15	3.4	Duke
15	3.4	Michigan
15	3.4	Univ. of Washington
19	3.3	Fordham
19	3.3	Harvard
19	3.3	Northwestern
19	3.3	San Diego
19	3.3	UC-Irvine
19	3.3	UCLA
19	3.3	Virginia
26	3.2	George Mason
26	3.2	Indiana (Maurer)
26	3.2	Texas
26	3.2	Vanderbilt
30	3.1	DePaul
30	3.1	Loyola-L.A.
30	3.1	UC-Hastings
33	3.0	Boston College
33	3.0	Colorado
33	3.0	UIC-John Marshall
33	3.0	Notre Dame
33	3.0	Utah
38	2.9	Chicago
38	2.9	Cornell
38	2.9	Emory
38	2.9	Illinois
38	2.9	Minnesota
38	2.9	Northeastern
44	2.8	BYU
44	2.8	Loyola-Chicago
44	2.8	Ohio State
44	2.8	Pittsburgh
44	2.8	Richmond
44	2.8	SMU
44	2.8	UC-Davis
44	2.8	Washington Univ.

2021 U.S. News Intellectual Property Law Rankings

2022 U.S. News Specialty Rankings:

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Foster & Lawson: Executive Tax Discretion

William E. Foster (Arkansas; Google Scholar) & Andrew Lawson (Arkansas; Google Scholar), Executive Tax Discretion, 73 Ala. L. Rev. ___ (2021):

Increasingly, Congress allows the president to determine tax consequences with the stroke of a pen. For example, if the president declares a major disaster under the Stafford Act, affected taxpayers are allowed a deduction for net personal casualty losses. This Article surveys instances of executive tax discretion scattered throughout the code, with a focus on disaster declarations.

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Public Defender Gets $275,000 In Law School Loans Forgiven

Karen Sloan (Law.com), This Public Defender Just Got $275,000 in Law School Loans Forgiven. Here's How.:

Jessica Buck got some welcome news when she logged into her federal student loan account March 30: Her $275,000 loan balance had officially been wiped out four days earlier under the federal government’s Public Service Loan Forgiveness program.

Buck, a 2010 graduate of Wake Forest University School of Law, has been working as a public defender in Danville, Kentucky, for the past decade and making payments on the $179,000 in loans she took out for law school. (The amount increased over time due to interest, though she paid nearly $26,000 toward them.) Under PSLF, which was created in 2007 to encourage people to pursue public service careers, federal loan borrowers who work in qualifying jobs and make qualifying payments on their loans for 10 years will have their remaining balance forgiven. (Monthly payments are capped at a percentage of the borrower’s income.) But actually obtaining that forgiveness has proven difficult for the earliest participants in the program. According to the most recent information available from the U.S. Department of Education, fewer than 3% of those who have applied for PSLF have been approved.

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Should My Lawyer Do My Taxes? Income Tax Preparation, Accounting Services, And The Scope Of The Attorney-Client Privilege

Nicholas Evan Hakun (Temple & Georgetown), Should My Lawyer Do My Taxes? Income Tax Preparation, Accounting Services, and the Scope of the Attorney-Client Privilege, 72 Tax Law. 639 (2019): 

This Comment seeks to explore the contours of the attorney-client privilege and its intersection with the tax laws. The courts conflict and do not provide a clear answer. Congress's attempts to legislate a solution fall short. This leaves the taxpayer at the whim of the IRS or other prosecuting authority.

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Eleven Tax Profs File Amicus Briefs In Supreme Court Supporting Disclosure Of Donors To Nonprofits

Americans for Prosperity Foundation v. Rodriquez (No. 19-251), decision below:  903 F.3d 1000 (9th Cir. 2018)

Question Presented
Whether the exacting scrutiny this Court has long required of laws that abridge the freedoms of speech and association outside the election context—as called for by NAACP v. Alabama ex rel. Patterson, 357 U.S. 449 (1958), and its progeny—can be satisfied absent any showing that a blanket governmental demand for the individual identities and addresses of major donors to private nonprofit organizations is narrowly tailored to an asserted law-enforcement interest.

Brief of the California Association of Nonprofits as Amicus Curiae in Support of Respondent (Daniel Hemel (Chicago) & Anna-Rose Mathieson (California Appellate Law Group, San Francisco)):

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Kim: Blockchain Initiatives For Tax Administration

Young Ran (Christine) Kim (Utah; Google Scholar), Blockchain Initiatives for Tax Administration, 69 UCLA L. Rev. ___ (2021):

A thriving body of literature discusses various legal issues related to blockchain, but often it mixes the discussion about blockchain with cryptocurrency. However, blockchain is not the same as cryptocurrency. Defined as a decentralized, immutable, peer-to-leer ledger technology, blockchain is a newly emerging data management system. The private sector—including the financial industry and supply chains—and the public sector—property records, public health, voting, and compliance, have all begun to utilize blockchain. Since more data is processed remotely, and thus digitally, the evolution of blockchain is gaining stronger momentum.

While scholarship on blockchain is growing, none of the scholarship has considered the impact of blockchain on the tax sector. This Article extends the study of blockchain to tax administration, evaluates the feasibility of incorporating blockchain within existing tax administrations, and provides policymakers with criteria to consider and some recommended designs for blockchain.

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Kim: Digital Services Tax — A Cross-Border Variation Of The Consumption Tax Debate

Young Ran (Christine) Kim (Utah; Google Scholar), Digital Services Tax: A Cross-Border Variation of the Consumption Tax Debate, 72 Ala. L. Rev. 131 (2020):

The rise of highly digitalized businesses, such as Google and Amazon, has strained the traditional income tax rules on nexus and profit allocation. Traditionally, profit is allocated to market countries where consumers are located only if the business has physical presence. However, in the digital economy, profits can be easily generated in market countries without a physical presence, resulting in tax revenue loss for market countries. In response, market countries have started imposing a new tax, called the digital services tax (“DST”), on certain digital business models, which has ignited heated debate across the globe. Supporters defend the DST, designed as a turnover style consumption tax, as an effective measure to make up the foregone revenue in the digital economy because it is not bound by the traditional rules of income taxation. Opponents criticize DST as “ring-fencing” or segregating certain digital business models, discriminating against American tech giants, and arguably imposing a disguised income tax. The debate has been focused on the imminent impact, such as who is the immediate winner and loser, but the discussion lacks efforts to understand the fundamentals of DST, especially with regard to the consumption tax aspect.

This Article is the first academic paper that highlights DST as a consumption tax and provides normative implications for policy makers deliberating a DST.

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University Of Missouri Faculty Upset About Use Of Data In Promotion And Tenure

Columbia Daily Tribune, University of Missouri Faculty Members Upset About Use of Data in Promotion and Tenure:

Some University of Missouri faculty members on Wednesday complained about the use of data and information from Academic Analytics in decisions on promotion and tenure of faculty.

Mun Choi, MU chancellor and UM System president, and MU Provost Latha Ramchand were the targets of the criticism.

The venue was the Spring General Faculty Meeting on Zoom. There were 225 participants at one point during the meeting.

Academic Analytics is a company that compiles information about journal articles, citations and other data for universities.

"I have concerns about using Academic Analytics data for promotion and tenure decisions," said faculty member Stephen Karian. "This is a radical break with previous practice."

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2022 U.S. News Health Care Law Rankings

The new 2022 U.S. News Health Care Law Rankings include the health care law programs at 181 law schools (the faculty survey had a 54% response rate). Here are the Top 50:

Rank	Score	School
1	4.3	Georgia State
2	4.2	St. Louis
3	4.1	Loyola-Chicago
4	4.0	Boston Univ.
5	3.9	Houston
5	3.9	Northeastern
7	3.8	Georgetown
7	3.8	Harvard
7	3.8	Maryland
7	3.8	Stanford
11	3.7	American
11	3.7	Case Western
13	3.6	Seton Hall
13	3.6	UC-Hastings
15	3.5	Yale
16	3.4	Arizona State
16	3.4	Indiana (McKinney)
18	3.3	Ohio State
18	3.3	Temple
20	3.2	George Washington
20	3.2	Minnesota
20	3.2	Penn
23	3.1	DePaul
23	3.1	Duke
23	3.1	Emory
23	3.1	Michigan
27	3.0	Mitchell-Hamline
27	3.0	Wake Forest
29	2.9	Pittsburgh
29	2.9	Texas
29	2.9	Washington Univ.
32	2.8	Drexel
32	2.8	UCLA
32	2.8	UNLV
32	2.8	Utah
32	2.8	Vanderbilt
37	2.7	North Carolina
37	2.7	Northwestern
37	2.7	Rutgers
37	2.7	UC-Irvine
41	2.6	Boston College
41	2.6	Georgia
41	2.6	Virginia
41	2.6	Univ. of Washington
45	2.5	Arizona
45	2.5	Chicago
45	2.5	Columbia
45	2.5	Connecticut
45	2.5	NYU
45	2.5	SMU
45	2.5	Suffolk
45	2.5	UC-Berkeley
45	2.5	USC
45	2.5	Washington & Lee
45	2.5	Wayne State
45	2.5	Wisconsin

2021 U.S. News Health Care Law Rankings

2022 U.S. News Specialty Rankings:

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2022 U.S. News Environmental Law Rankings

The new 2022 U.S. News Environmental Law Rankings include the environmental law programs at 181 law schools (the faculty survey had a 59% response rate). Here are the Top 50:

Rank	Score	School
1	4.5	Lewis & Clark
1	4.5	Pace
1	4.5	UC-Berkeley
4	4.3	NYU
4	4.3	UCLA
4	4.3	Vermont
7	4.1	Columbia
7	4.1	Georgetown
7	4.1	Harvard
10	4.0	Colorado
10	4.0	George Washington
10	4.0	Oregon
10	4.0	Stanford
10	4.0	Utah
15	3.9	Vanderbilt
16	3.8	Duke
16	3.8	Maryland
18	3.7	Florida State
18	3.7	Tulane
20	3.6	Arizona State
20	3.6	Florida
20	3.6	Houston
20	3.6	Yale
24	3.5	Boston College
24	3.5	Denver
24	3.5	Hawaii
24	3.5	Minnesota
24	3.5	UC-Davis
24	3.5	UC-Hastings
30	3.4	Texas
30	3.4	Virginia
32	3.3	Arizona
32	3.3	UC-Irvine
34	3.2	Texas A&M
34	3.2	New Mexico
34	3.2	Univ. of Washington
37	3.1	American
37	3.1	Indiana (Maurer)
37	3.1	Michigan
37	3.1	North Carolina
37	3.1	Widener (DE)
42	3.0	Montana
42	3.0	Wisconsin
44	2.9	Northwestern
44	2.9	Penn State-Univ. Park
44	2.9	South Carolina
44	2.9	Widener (PA)
48	2.8	Emory
48	2.8	Loyola-New Orleans
48	2.8	Miami
48	2.8	Notre Dame
48	2.8	Penn
48	2.8	Seattle
48	2.8	Wake Forest
48	2.8	Washington Univ.
48	2.8	Wyoming

2021 U.S. News Environmental Law Rankings

2022 U.S. News Specialty Rankings:

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Lesson From The Tax Court: Passport Revocation Act Differs From Codification

Justice John Marshall is typically credited as creating the idea that the judicial branch has the power to declare Acts of Congress unconstitutional.  See Marbury v. Madison, 5 U.S. 137 (1803).  But courts exercise that power cautiously, refusing to confront allegations of unconstitutionality if they can plausibly dodge the issue. See generally, Gunnar P. Seaquist, The Constitutional Avoidance Canon of Statutory Construction, The Advocate 25 (Summer 2015).

Robert Rowen v. Commissioner, 156 T.C. No. 8 (Mar. 30, 2021) (Judge Toro), shows us the caution of the Tax Court.  There, the taxpayer invited the Court to declare the passport revocation process, created by Congress in the FAST Act of 2015, unconstitutional.  The Court unanimously dodged the invitation, based on the taxpayer’s failure to distinguish between an Act of Congress and the codification of an Act.  The Tax Court viewed the only part of the FAST Act at issue to be the part codified in the Internal Revenue Code in §7345.  It held that since §7345 does not, on its own, trigger any deprivation of property or liberty, this was not the proper case for the Court to rule on the constitutionality of the entire passport revocation process.  I invite readers to form their own conclusions about the plausibility of the Court’s dodge.  Details below the fold.

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Drumbl: #Audited — Social Media And Tax Enforcement

Michelle Lyon Drumbl (Interim Dean, Washington & Lee), #Audited: Social Media and Tax Enforcement, 100 Or. L. Rev. ___ (2021):

With limited resources and a diminished budget, it is not surprising that the Internal Revenue Service would seek new tools to maximize its enforcement efficiency. Automation and technology provide new opportunities for the IRS, and in turn, present new concerns for taxpayers. In December 2018, the IRS signaled its interest in a tool to access publicly available social media profiles of individuals in order to “expedite IRS case resolution for existing compliance cases.” This has important implications for taxpayer privacy.

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TaxProf Blog Weekend Roundup

Saturday:

• This Week's Ten Most Popular TaxProf Blog Posts
• The U.S. News Law School Rankings Failed Diversity 101
• NY Times: An Accidental Disclosure Exposes A $1 Billion IRS Tax Fight With Bristol Myers
• Why It Matters That More Law Reviews Are Electing Black Editors

Sunday:

• Easter: Recovering The Strangeness Of The Resurrection
• Passover: Lessons For Politicians (And The Rest Of Us)
• U.S. Church Membership Falls Below 50% For First Time In Nearly A Century ... But Easter Teaches Us Not To Fear Religion's Decline
• The Top Five New Tax Papers

Easter: Recovering The Strangeness Of The Resurrection

Wall Street Journal op-ed:  Recovering the Strangeness of Easter, by Robert Barron (Auxiliary Bishop, Archdiocese of Los Angeles:

We are told in the Bible that three women, friends and followers of Jesus, came to the tomb of their Master early on the Sunday morning following his crucifixion in order to anoint his body. Undoubtedly they anticipated that, while performing this task, they would wistfully recall the things that their friend had said and done. Perhaps they would express their frustration at those who had brought him to this point, betraying, denying and running from him in his hour of need. Certainly, they expected to weep in their grief.

But when they arrived, they found to their surprise that the heavy stone had been rolled away from the entrance of the tomb. Had a grave robber been at work? Their astonishment only intensified when they spied inside the grave, not the body of Jesus, but a young man clothed in white, blithely announcing, “You are looking for Jesus of Nazareth, who was crucified. He has been raised; he is not here. Look, there is the place they laid him.”

The mysterious messenger’s communication was, to put it bluntly, not that someone had broken into this tomb, rather that someone had broken out. In St. Mark’s version of the story—which is the earliest that we have—the reaction of the women is described as follows: “So they went out and fled from the tomb, for terror and amazement had seized them.”

If the grave of a hero is customarily a place of serene contemplation, this one is so disturbing that people run from it in fear—and thereupon hangs the tale of Easter. Especially today, it is imperative that Christians recover the sheer strangeness of the Resurrection of Jesus and stand athwart all attempts to domesticate it. ...

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Passover: Lessons For Politicians (And The Rest Of Us)

Wall Street Journal op-ed:  Lessons for Politicians at Passover, by William A. Galston (Brookings Institution):

In the middle of the Passover celebration comes a well-known song that traces the journey’s steps, starting with the Exodus from Egypt and ending with the building of Solomon’s Temple in Jerusalem. After each stage comes the refrain “dayenu,” which means: It would have been enough if God’s grace had ended there.

This is good theology: Every blessing from God is more than we deserve, and the correct response is gratitude. But from a practical standpoint, the premise is incorrect. Liberation is a precondition of freedom, but no guarantee of it. Revolutions can go awry, and usually do. Throwing off the shackles of tyranny often ends in new forms of bondage.

The shared experience of oppression holds the oppressed together, but once the tyranny ends, so does the unity. Revolutionary leaders can claim only tenuous authority, at least at first, unless they are buttressed by character and accomplishment. Envious rivals eventually mobilized the people against Moses and revolted against his leadership.

The newly liberated Israelites weren’t ready for freedom. Confronted with the rigors of life in the desert, they yearned for the guaranteed sustenance of oppression, and they blamed Moses for failing to meet their unrealistic expectations. The Exodus generation, which hadn’t been responsible for its own liberation, lacked the courage to fight for freedom. It took a new generation, hardened by deprivation and conflict, to develop the character needed to enter the Promised Land.

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U.S. Church Membership Falls Below 50% For First Time In Nearly A Century ... But Easter Teaches Us Not To Fear Religion's Decline

Gallup, U.S. Church Membership Falls Below Majority for First Time:

Americans' membership in houses of worship continued to decline last year, dropping below 50% for the first time in Gallup's eight-decade trend. In 2020, 47% of Americans said they belonged to a church, synagogue or mosque, down from 50% in 2018 and 70% in 1999.

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