Hickman Presents Delay, Politics, And Expertise In OIRA Tax Review Today At Columbia

Kristin Hickman (Minnesota; Google Scholar) presents Delay, Politics, and Expertise in OIRA Tax Review, 44 Va. Tax Rev. __ (2025) (with Bridget C.E. Dooling (Ohio State; Google Scholar)) at Columbia today as part of its Davis Polk & Wardwell Tax Policy Colloquium hosted by Michael Love:

Among the many changes to federal policy undertaken by the second Trump Administration, a lesser-known change is the reinstatement of centralized review of tax regulations by the Office of Information of Regulatory Affairs (OIRA). Reports suggest that OIRA review for regulations issued by independent agencies may be next.

For many years, most tax regulations were exempt from OIRA review. That changed in the first Trump Administration when the Treasury Department (Treasury) and OIRA signed a memorandum of agreement bringing more tax regulations within OIRA’s oversight sphere. In the Biden administration, Treasury and OIRA reversed course, this time clearly and unequivocally exempting all tax regulations without exception. Now the script has flipped again, as a new Trump executive order has reinstated OIRA review of tax regulations.

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Pressure Grows On California Bar To Switch To NCBE For July Exam Following February Exam Debacle

Following up on Saturday's post, California Supreme Court Demands Answers From State Bar On Its Use Of AI In Preparing Bar Exam Questions:  Los Angeles Times, Pressure Grows on California State Bar to Revert to National Exam Format in July After Botched Exam:

An influential California legislator is pressuring the State Bar of California to ditch its new multiple-choice questions after a February bar exam debacle and revert to the traditional test format in July.

“Given the catastrophe of the February bar, I think that going back to the methods that have been used for the last 50 years — until we can adequately test what new methods may be employed — is the appropriate way to go,” Sen. Thomas J. Umberg, chair of the state Senate Judiciary Committee, told The Times.

Thousands of test takers seeking to practice law in California typically take the two-day bar exam in July. Reverting to the national system by the National Conference of Bar Examiners, which California has used since 1972, would be a major retreat for the embattled State Bar. Its new exam was rolled out this year as a cost-cutting measure and “historic agreement” that would offer test takers the choice of remote testing.

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Legal Ed News Roundup

• ABA Journal, Did You Default On Your Student Loans? What To Know As Collections Restart
• ABA Journal, More 2024 Law Grads Find Jobs Than In 2023, New ABA Data Shows
• ABA Journal, Some Of California’s Troubled Bar Exam Was Drafted By Nonlawyers With Help From Artificial Intelligence
• ABA News, Could San Jose State Get a Law School? CA Bill Aims to Make It Happen
• Above the Law, The Law School With Top Writing Chops
• The Advocate, Don’t Let the Barbie Collection Fool You: She’s Running the Show at LSU's Law School
• Daily Report Online, Longtime Legal Nonprofit Leader to Lead Atlanta's John Marshall Law School
• The Den, President Underwood Announces Plans to Return to Full-Time Teaching in the Law School
• Harvard Crimson, Harvard Law Student Wins Big on Jeopardy

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Jonathan Choi Leaves USC For Washington University

Jonathan Choi (USC; Google Scholar) has accepted a lateral offer from Washington University effective Spring 2026:

Jonathan H. Choi is a professor of law at USC Gould School of Law. He specializes in law and artificial intelligence (applying natural language processing to study legal issues), tax law and statutory interpretation. His work has appeared in the New York University Law Review, the Stanford Law Review, the Yale Journal on Regulation and the Yale Law Journal, among others. His work has been covered by a wide variety of news outlets, including ABC News, Bloomberg, CBS News, CNN, the Daily Mail, Fox News, NBC Nightly News, the New Yorker, Reuters, the Star Tribune, and the Washington Post.

Choi graduated summa cum laude from Dartmouth College, with a triple major in computer science, economics and philosophy and earned high honors for his computer science thesis. He earned a JD at the Yale Law School, where he was the executive bluebook editor of the Yale Law Journal and a founding co-director of the Yale Journal on Regulation Online. Before entering academia, he practiced tax law at Wachtell, Lipton, Rosen & Katz in New York. He previously taught at the University of Minnesota Law School.

His recent publications include:

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Law School Rankings By First-Time Bar Passage Rate (2024)

Following up on my previous post, New ABA Bar Data: Pass Rate Increased 3 Percentage Points For First-Time Takers; 6 Law Schools Fell Short of 75% Accreditation Threshold:  here is the ranking of law schools in the Calendar Year 2024 First-Time Takers Bar Pass Data from the ABA's spreadsheet. The ranking uses an adjusted pass rate that is the sum of the school pass rate (including alternative pathways) and the difference between that school pass rate and average state pass rate, per the current U.S. News methodology: "first-time test-takers' weighted bar passage rates among all jurisdictions, or states, then added or subtracted the average percentage point difference between those rates and the weighted state average among ABA accredited schools' first-time test-takers in the corresponding jurisdictions").

Rank	School	Average State Pass Rate	School Pass Rate (Incl. Diploma Privilege)	Total Difference	Adjusted Pass Rate
1	Chicago	81.49%	97.42%	15.93%	113.35%
2	Harvard	83.44%	97.86%	14.42%	112.28%
3	Belmont	77.95%	95.00%	17.05%	112.05%
4	Duke	82.94%	97.48%	14.54%	112.02%
5	Stanford	81.40%	96.50%	15.10%	111.60%
6	Michigan	80.44%	95.57%	15.13%	110.70%
7	Texas A&M	81.39%	95.98%	14.59%	110.57%
8	Penn	82.93%	96.70%	13.77%	110.47%
9	Texas	81.57%	95.62%	14.05%	109.67%
10	UCLA	78.85%	94.23%	15.38%	109.61%
11	Yale	83.57%	96.50%	12.93%	109.43%
12	USC	78.74%	94.01%	15.27%	109.28%
13	NYU	85.02%	96.72%	11.70%	108.42%
14	Baylor	81.44%	94.92%	13.48%	108.40%
15	Cornell	84.73%	96.41%	11.68%	108.09%
16	Illinois	79.05%	93.56%	14.51%	108.07%
17	Vanderbilt	81.05%	94.55%	13.46%	108.01%
18	Virginia	82.83%	94.98%	12.15%	107.13%
19	Columbia	84.98%	95.85%	10.87%	106.72%
20	Washington Univ.	81.37%	93.57%	12.20%	105.77%
21	Tennessee	78.49%	91.94%	13.45%	105.39%
22	North Carolina	79.60%	92.27%	12.67%	104.94%
23	Minnesota	83.36%	94.09%	10.73%	104.82%
24	Utah	84.88%	94.74%	9.86%	104.60%
25	Notre Dame	79.83%	92.15%	12.32%	104.47%
26	Boston College	83.55%	93.82%	10.27%	104.09%
27	Florida Int'l	72.91%	88.34%	15.43%	103.77%
28	Kansas	80.59%	92.17%	11.58%	103.75%
29	Ohio State	80.32%	91.95%	11.63%	103.58%
30	Alabama	80.51%	92.00%	11.49%	103.49%
31	Georgetown	83.29%	93.05%	9.76%	102.81%
32	Northwestern	81.00%	91.80%	10.80%	102.60%
33	UC-Berkeley	79.91%	91.16%	11.25%	102.41%
34	Villanova	80.14%	91.26%	11.12%	102.38%
35	Florida	75.20%	88.55%	13.35%	101.90%
36	Boston Univ.	83.30%	92.28%	8.98%	101.26%
37	Univ. of Washington	82.21%	91.72%	9.51%	101.23%
38	Florida State	73.35%	87.22%	13.87%	101.09%
39	Georgia	79.72%	90.37%	10.65%	101.02%
40	Wisconsin	78.72%	99.61%	1.28%	100.89%
41	South Texas	81.42%	91.13%	9.71%	100.84%
41	Temple	79.72%	90.28%	10.56%	100.84%
43	Fordham	85.77%	92.98%	7.21%	100.19%
44	UC-Davis	77.78%	88.98%	11.16%	100.14%
45	Arizona State	75.03%	87.54%	12.51%	100.05%
46	Georgia State	79.87%	89.95%	10.08%	100.03%
47	Iowa	82.10%	90.96%	8.86%	99.82%
48	Wayne State	72.93%	86.05%	13.12%	99.17%
49	SMU	81.36%	90.20%	8.84%	99.04%
50	Regent	77.60%	88.18%	10.58%	98.76%

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Pervasive Pattern Of Racial Discrimination At Harvard Law Review

Washington Free Beacon (Aaron Sibarium), Internal Documents Reveal Pervasive Pattern of Racial Discrimination at Harvard Law Review:

Will this law review article "promote DEI values"? Does it cite scholars from "underrepresented groups"? Will it have "any foreseeable impact in enhancing diversity, equity, and inclusion"? And why did one team of editors solicit "only white, male authors"?

Those are some of the questions that editors at the Harvard Law Review asked in internal documents obtained by the Washington Free Beacon. The documents, which span more than four years and have not been previously reported, include article evaluations, training materials, and data on the race and gender of journal authors. They reveal a pattern of pervasive race discrimination at the nation’s top law journal and threaten to plunge Harvard, already at war with the federal government, into even deeper crisis.

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Taxation, Lactation, And Validation: The Symbolic Power Of Tax Law To Legitimize Breast Milk Expression

Elizabeth A. Hoffmann (Purdue; Google Scholar), Taxation, Lactation, and Validation: The Symbolic Power of Tax Law to Legitimize Breast Milk Expression, 49 Law & Soc. Inquiry 1327 (2024):

In 2011, the Internal Revenue Service reversed a previous regulation that excluded lactation supplies, including breast pumps, from medical care tax benefits. This policy change was met with joy by some working mothers. Often torn between family needs and workplace duties, these lactating employees struggled with trying to be a “good worker” and a “good mother.” They saw the new tax law as validation of their efforts to express milk at work and legitimation for the accommodations they required. They felt that even an area of law as technical and complex as tax law could recognize their commitment to combining breastfeeding and employment. However, the women recognized that the law only facilitated greater ability to lactate but not more time with their babies, which they greatly wanted. Indeed, this article asks if breast pumps and supplies would even be an issue for many women if the United States provided women with the more extensive maternity leave that workers in other developed countries receive.

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TaxProf Blog Weekend Roundup

Saturday:

• This Week's Ten Most Popular TaxProf Blog Posts
• The Seven Essential Law School Simulation Courses
• Next Week’s Tax Workshops
• California Supreme Court Demands Answers From State Bar On Its Use Of AI In Preparing Bar Exam Questions
• Tax-Exempt Status For NIL Collectives

Sunday:

• Pope Francis's Legacy
• How JD Vance, A ‘Baby Catholic,’ Stumbled Into A Clash With The Pope
• ‘A Citizen of Heaven And Harvard’: Honoring The Life And Ongoing Impact Of Bill Stuntz
• Three Law & Religion Articles
• Pepperdine Caruso Law 3L Commissioning Service
• The Top Five New Tax Papers

Pope Francis's Legacy

New York Times Op-Ed:  Francis and the End of the Imperial Papacy, by Ross Douthat (Author, Believe: Why Everyone Should Be Religious (2025):

Pope Francis, who passed to his reward on the morning after Easter at age 88, was a version of the liberal pope that many Catholics had earnestly desired all through the long reign of John Paul II and the shorter one of Benedict XVI — a man whose worldview was shaped and defined by the Second Vatican Council and whose pontificate sought a renewal of its revolution, a further great modernization of the Catholic Church.

In one way, at least, he succeeded. For generations, modernizers lamented the outsize power of the papacy, the anachronism of a monarchical authority in a democratic age, the way the concept of papal infallibility froze Catholic debates even as the world rushed forward. In theory Francis shared those concerns, promising a more collegial and horizontally oriented church, more synodal, in the jargon of the Catholic bureaucracy. In practice he often used his power in the same way as his predecessors, to police and suppress deviations from his authority — except that this time the targets were dissenting conservatives and traditionalists instead of progressives and modernizers.

But just by creating that novel form of conflict, in which Catholics who had been accustomed to being on the same side as the Vatican found themselves suddenly crosswise from papal authority, Francis helped to demystify his office’s authority and undermine its most imposing claims.

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How JD Vance, A ‘Baby Catholic,’ Stumbled Into A Clash With The Pope

Washington Post, How JD Vance, a ‘Baby Catholic,’ Stumbled into a Clash With the Pope:

The first Catholic convert elected to the vice presidency has provoked an extraordinary string of conflicts within the church he joined six years ago.

Only three Catholics have won the presidency or vice presidency. For the first two, Democrats John F. Kennedy and Joe Biden, faith was a muted note in their public lives — a source of pride to millions of American Catholics but rarely invoked as a direct influence on policy.

The third, Vice President JD Vance, a Republican, has launched his current career as the nation’s most prominent elected Catholic in a very different way. In less than three months, Vance has made a string of unusual forays into the fraught borderland between religion and politics, castigating the hierarchy of his own church and defending President Donald Trump’s “America First” nationalism through appeals to ancient Christian texts.

Vance’s pronouncements have divided his co-religionists and inflamed long-smoldering divisions within the church. In February, Pope Francis issued a remarkable letter to U.S. bishops that included a rebuke of Vance’s public theologizing. But the vice president has equally staunch defenders among conservative American Catholics who have repeatedly criticized the current papacy.

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‘A Citizen of Heaven And Harvard’: Honoring The Life And Ongoing Impact Of Bill Stuntz

Following up on my previous posts:

• Death of Bill Stuntz (Harvard)
• Harvard Law Review Tribute: Bill Stuntz

Harvard Law Today, ‘A Citizen of Heaven and Harvard’: Honoring the Life and Ongoing Impact of William J. Stuntz:

For William J. Stuntz, the law and religion were inseparable.

At a recent gathering to honor the late Harvard professor and influential scholar on criminal law and procedure, who wrote extensively on Christianity and legal matters, Jack Goldsmith recalled how his longtime friend and colleague infused his life and work with a kindness and care inspired by his strongly held evangelical Christian beliefs.

Stuntz joined the Law School faculty in 2000 and was named the Henry J. Friendly Professor of Law in 2007. He died in 2011 at age of 52 after a long battle with cancer, but his insights and scholarship involving Christian legal theory, his groundbreaking contributions to the fields of criminal law and procedure, and his influence as a gifted mentor, giving friend, and gracious colleague live on at Harvard and beyond.

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Three Law & Religion Articles

Anton Sorkin (Director of Law Student Ministries, Christian Legal Society), Riding the Second Wave: Three Articles That Speak to the Mission & Purpose of Institute for Christian Legal Studies:

Throughout my work, I run across countless excellent articles that speak to the underlying richness of the law and religion tradition that feed into my work with students and attorneys alike. Articles that challenge the very foundation of our sense of self as a religious nation and the role of Christianity in shaping law and politics. Since last summer, many of these articles have made their way onto the Cross & Gavel Podcast as I sought to engage the authors in the quality of their ideas and bring to attention their work on a more popular level.

That is my aim here today, not only because of my recent assent to the directorship of the Institute for Christian Legal Studies (ICLS) at Christian Legal Society. But, more fundamentally, because this work has been captured well by three articles that strengthen the fibers of what ICLS strives to become in the years ahead. ...

[M]y focus here is to highlight three recent articles that speak to the heart of what ICLS hopes to achieve in the coming years!

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Pepperdine Caruso Law 3L Commissioning Service

We hosted our 13th annual 3L Commissioning Service at Pepperdine Caruso Law last week. Like many of the best things at our school, it is the brainchild of a student. In 2012, 2L Raija Churchill proposed that the last Wednesday night Dean's Bible study of the year model the Great Commission (Matthew 28:16-20) as a send-off for our graduating 3Ls.

I was honored to give a gift to our 3Ls to encourage them to live the lives that God has called them to after they graduate: a paperweight to keep on their desks to remind them (on the top) of their time at Pepperdine Caruso Law and (on the bottom) a single word — the most powerful word that Jesus talked about and modeled for us — forgiveness. I shared several of the forgiveness stories I have chronicled on this blog, including this, this, this, this, this, this, this, this, this, and this.

The highlight of the evening was when our faculty and staff spoke words of life over each of the graduating 3Ls (kudos to Tyler Clark (JD ’22) for beginning this wonderful tradition):

My wife Courtney closed the evening with a powerful commissioning prayer for the 3Ls:

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The Top Five New Tax Papers

There is a bit of movement in this week's list of the Top 5 Recent Tax Paper Downloads, with a new paper debuting on the list at #3.  The #1 paper is #322 among 11,944 tax papers in all-time downloads.

1. [1,176 Downloads]  Tax Fairness: Reconceptualising Taxation and Inequalities, by Rita de la Feria (Leeds; Google Scholar)
2. [342 Downloads]  Global Tax Wars in the Digital Era, by Assaf Harpaz (Georgia; Google Scholar) (reviewed by Mirit Eyal-Cohen (Alabama; Google Scholar) here)
3. [288 Downloads]  Global Tax Decluttering, by Shu-Yi Oei (Duke; Google Scholar) & Diane Ring (Boston College; Google Scholar)
4. [280 Downloads]  From Relic to Relevance, The Resurgence of Tariffs, by Reuven Avi-Yonah (Michigan; Google Scholar), Doron Narotzki (Akron; Google Scholar) & Tamir Shanan College of Management)
5. [269 Downloads]  You Play, You Pay! Mobility, Territory, And Exclusive Source Taxation In The 21st Century, by Yariv Brauner (Florida; Google Scholar) (reviewed by Blaine Saito (Ohio State; Google Scholar) here)

Editor's Note:  If you would like to receive a daily email with links to tax posts on TaxProf Blog, email me here.

This Week's Ten Most Popular TaxProf Blog Posts

Legal Education:

1. U.S. News, 2025-26 Law Specialty Rankings
   1. Legal Writing
   2. Trial Advocacy
   3. Omnibus Specialty Rankings
   4. Omnibus Specialty Rankings v. Overall Rankings
2. Paul Caron (Dean, Pepperdine), Law Schools That Boycotted The U.S. News Rankings
3. Los Angeles Times, California Bar Allowed Non-Lawyers To Use AI To Draft February Exam Questions, Will Ask Supreme Court To Lower Cut Score
4. Matthew Sag (Emory), Forward Looking Academic Impact Rankings For U.S. Law Schools
5. ABA, Class Of 2024 Jobs Data: ‘Maximum Credit’ Jobs Rate Rises To 89.7%, Up From 88.0% Last Year
6. GQ, The Economy Is Frightening. Law School Won’t Save You.
7. White House, Trump Executive Order Targets College (And Law School) Accreditors (Including ABA), Blames DEI For Low Standards And Poor Student Outcomes
8. Reuters, Nearly All Elite Law Schools Move Up Summer Associate Job Interviews To May And June
9. Anton Sorkin (Christian Legal Society), Are Faith-Based Law Schools Fairly Ranked By U.S. News?
10. Law.com, A Growing Chorus Of Law School Deans And Faculty Are Speaking Out Against Trump’s Threat To The Rule Of Law

Editor's Note:  If you would like to receive a daily email with links to legal education posts on TaxProf Blog, email me here.

Tax:

1. The Atlantic (Conor Clarke, Washington University), Bob Jones And The Conservative Case For Not Revoking Harvard's Tax Exemption
2. Blaine Saito (Ohio State), Review Of Mobility, Territory, And Exclusive Source Taxation By Yariv Brauner (Florida)
3. Tracey Roberts (Cumberland), The Tax Trench Deepens
4. Wisconsin Law School, 28th Annual Critical Tax Conference
5. Paul Caron (Dean, Pepperdine), Tax Policy In The Trump Administration
6. Ursula Ramsey (North Carolina), The Professional Employer Organization Regulatory Regime
7. Alex Raskolnikov (Columbia), Taxing The Ten Percent
8. SSRN, Tax Professor Rankings
9. Conor Clarke (Washington University), Presentation Of Apportioned Direct Taxes At Missouri
10. Harold Holzer (Hunter College), The First IRS Commissioner: ‘The Most Consequential Public Figure Americans Have Never Heard Of’

Editor's Note:  If you would like to receive a daily email with links to tax posts on TaxProf Blog, email me here.

Faith:

1. Anton Sorkin (Christian Legal Society), Are Faith-Based Law Schools Fairly Ranked By U.S. News?
2. Christianity Today (Esau McCaulley, Wheaton College), This Palm Sunday, Ponder Donkeys, Not Palm Branches
3. New York Times (Elizabeth Dias & Ruth Graham), White House Of Worship: Christian Prayer Rings Out Under Trump
4. Jennifer Lee Koh (Pepperdine), Christian Lawyers In The Public Interest And Outside The Political Right
5. New York Times (Ross Douthat), Can The Jesus Of History Support The Christ Of Faith?
   Christianity Today (Tish Harrison Warren), The Epic Jesus Follower Fail: The Cringe-Worthy Subplot Of Holy Week Underscores The Truth Of The Gospel

Editor's Note:  If you would like to receive a weekly email each Sunday with links to faith posts on TaxProf Blog, email me here. 

The Seven Essential Law School Simulation Courses

Mitch Zamoff (Minnesota; Google Scholar), The Seven Essential Law School Simulation Courses , 2024 Utah L. Rev. 997:

As we mark the ten-year anniversary of the American Bar Association’s six-credit experiential learning requirement and the launch of the NextGen bar exam, it is critical for U.S. law schools to conduct rigorous assessments of their experiential education curricula. While most law schools now offer students meaningful opportunities to develop lawyering skills in clinics and field placements, there is much less consistency in their simulation course offerings. Simulation courses are a critical component of experiential legal education. While students in clinics and field placements gain valuable, realistic experience addressing the issues presented by their actual clients, those issues may sometimes be atypical and unlikely to recur in the students’ law practices after graduation. 

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Next Week’s Tax Workshops

Monday, April 28: Kristin Hickman (Minnesota; Google Scholar) will present Delay, Politics, and Expertise in OIRA Tax Review, 44 Va. Tax Rev. __ (2025) (with Bridget C.E. Dooling (Ohio State; Google Scholar)), as part of the Columbia Davis Polk & Wardwell Tax Policy Colloquium. If you would like to attend, please contact Michael Love.

Tuesday, April 29: Andrew Hayashi (Virginia; Google Scholar) will present The Effect of CAMT on Financial Reporting (with Quinn Curtis (Virginia; Google Scholar)) as part of the USC Corporate and Commercial Law Seminar. If you would like to attend, please contact Michael Simkovic and D. Daniel Sokol. 

Wednesday, April 30: Daniel Hemel (NYU; Google Scholar) will present Formalism, Functionalism, and Nonfunctionalism in the Constitutional Law of Tax as part of the Missouri Tax Policy Colloquium. If you would like to attend, please contact David Gamage. 

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California Supreme Court Demands Answers From State Bar On Its Use Of AI In Preparing Bar Exam Questions

Following up on Wednesday's post, California Bar Allowed Non-Lawyers To Use AI To Draft February Exam Questions, Will Ask Supreme Court To Lower Cut Score:  Los Angeles Times, California Supreme Court Demands State Bar Answer Questions on AI Exam Controversy:

The California Supreme Court urged the State Bar of California on Thursday to explain how and why it utilized artificial intelligence to develop multiple-choice questions for its botched February bar exams.

California’s highest court, which oversees the State Bar, disclosed Tuesday that its justices were not informed before the exam that the State Bar had allowed its independent psychometrician to use AI to develop a small subset of questions.

The Court on Thursday upped its public pressure on the State Bar, demanding it explain how it used AI to develop questions — and what actions it took to ensure the reliability of the questions.

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Tax-Exempt Status For NIL Collectives

Austin Siener (J.D. 2025, Missouri-Columbia), Note, Time for an Audible: Possible Solutions for NIL Colectives Seeking Tax-Exempt Status following IRS Memo, 89 Mo. L. Rev. 741 (2024): 

The United States Supreme Court’s decision in NCAA v. Alston sent shockwaves throughout the world of college sports. The Court’s recognition of student athletes’ abilities to profit from their name, image, and likeness (“NIL”) revolutionized the landscape of collegiate athletics. Shortly thereafter, the National Collegiate Athletic Association (the “NCAA”) adopted its Interim NIL Policy, explicitly allowing opportunities for companies, entities, or individuals to pay student athletes for use of their NIL. Unsurprisingly, athletes capitalized on the opportunities immediately. For example, Hanna and Haley Cavinder, former women’s college basketball players with millions of followers on social media, completed an NIL deal with Boost Mobile, a wireless service provider, within hours of the NCAA policy’s enactment. 

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Weekly SSRN Tax Article Review And Roundup: Speck Reviews The Past And Future Of Taxing “Incomes” By Wallace & Wells

This week, Sloan Speck (Colorado; Google Scholar) reviews a new work by Clint Wallace (South Carolina; Google Scholar) & Bret Wells (Houston; Google Scholar), The Past and Future of Taxing "Incomes", 104 N.C. L. Rev. ___ (2025).

The Supreme Court’s recent consideration of Moore v. United States has sparked a broad and deep academic interest in the history of the realization concept in U.S. income tax law. Realization, of course, refers to the mechanic, explicit or implicit across broad swaths the current Internal Revenue Code and Treasury Regulations, that measures taxpayers’ income by reference to identifiable events that fix the timing and amount of that income. Although the Moore majority sidestepped the issue of whether the Constitution requires realization when taxing income, the Moore opinions indicate that past understandings of income will inform the Court’s future forays into the constitutionality of tax statutes. History and tradition have come to federal income tax law. As Conor Clarke aptly quipped after oral arguments in Moore, “we are all tax historians now.”

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Weekly Legal Education Roundup

• American Bar Association, Legal Education Section Releases Employment Data For Graduating Law Class of 2024
• Paul Caron (Dean, Pepperdine), Law Schools That Boycotted The U.S. News Rankings
• Detroit Law Review Symposium, Law School 101—An Exploration Of Legal Pedagogy
• GQ, The Economy Is Frightening. Law School Won’t Save You.
• Inside Higher Ed, Can Universities Still Diversify Faculty Hiring Under Trump?
• Law.com, A Growing Chorus Of Law School Deans And Faculty Are Speaking Out Against Trump’s Threat To The Rule Of Law
• Los Angeles Times, State Bar of California Admits It Used AI to Develop Exam Questions, Triggering New Furor
• Jerry Organ (St. Thomas), Astonishingly Strong Employment Outcomes for the Class of 2024

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Tax Policy In The Trump Administration

• Bloomberg, Deregulatory Actions Hit the Tax World in Real Time
• Bloomberg, Harvard’s Stantcheva Wins Young Economist Award for Work on Tax Policy
• Bloomberg, Supreme Court Case Poised to Refine Due Process in Tax Disputes
• Bloomberg, Trump’s Millionaire Tax Would Hit CEOs, Wall Street Bankers While Billionaires Slide
• Bloomberg, Trump Says He Loves Millionaire Tax, Worries of Political Risk
• Chronicle of Philanthropy, ‘Five Alarm Fire': How New Tax Law Could Decimate Nonprofits — and What Can Be Done
• CNN, IRS Faces Massive Cuts as Audit Rates Plunge: Texas Tech Law Professor Bryan Camp Addresses How Audit Rates and Tax Revenues Will Drop If Trump Administration Makes Largest Workforce Reduction in History at the IRS

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28th Annual Critical Tax Conference At Wisconsin

Wisconsin hosts the 28th Annual Critical Tax Conference today and tomorrow (program): 

Friday 

9:00 AM: Welcome 

• Dan Tokaji (Dean, Wisconsin) 

9:10 - 10:15 AM: Panel 1

• Emily Cauble (Wisconsin; Google Scholar) (moderator) 
• Ariel Jurow Kleiman (USC; Google Scholar), Shayak Sarkar (UC-Davis; Google Scholar) & Emily Satterthwaite (Georgetown; Google Scholar), Taxing Domestic Employers
• Lauren Shores Pelikan (Missouri-Columbia), Toddlers, Investors and Tax Policy
  • Discussant: Gaga Gondwe (Wisconsin; Google Scholar) (discussant) 
• Kerry Ryan (St. Louis), Mothers in Jails: A Taxing Issue
  • Discussant: Diane Klein Kemker (Southern) (discussant) 

10:30 - 12:00 PM: Panel 2

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2025-26 U.S. News Omnibus Specialty Rankings v. Overall Rankings

Following up on yesterday's post, 2025-26 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	24	104	+80
2	Santa Clara	85	156	+71
3	Pacific	94	163	+69
4	Illinois-Chicago	104	169	+65
5	Howard	63	127	+64
6	Brooklyn	56	117	+61
6	Case Western	46	107	+61
8	Suffolk	70	127	+57
9	Rutgers	51	104	+53
10	Denver	37	88	+51
11	CUNY	107	156	+49
12	Miami	44	92	+48
12	Pace	93	141	+48
12	UC Law - SF*	40	88	+48
15	Baltimore	92	139	+47
16	San Francisco*	120	166	+46
16	Seattle	81	127	+46
18	DePaul	95	133	+38
18	Hofstra	87	125	+38
20	Mitchell | Hamline	117	154	+37
21	Widener (DE)	134	169	+35
22	Maryland	30	63	+33
23	Loyola-New Orleans	102	134	+32
23	Michigan State	83	115	+32
23	Nova	147	179	+32
23	Widener (PA)	143	175	+32
27	Cal-Western*	150	179	+29
28	Vermont	135	163	+28
29	Houston	36	63	+27
29	Loyola-Chicago	52	79	+27
31	Temple	24	50	+26
31	UNLV	53	79	+26
33	UC-Irvine*	14	38	+24
34	Arizona State	22	45	+23
34	Chicago-Kent	84	107	+23
34	Fordham	15	38	+23
34	Oregon	71	94	+23
38	Lewis & Clark	77	99	+22
38	Quinnipiac*	119	141	+22
38	Tulane*	49	71	+22
38	Willamette	128	150	+22
42	George Washington	11	31	+20
42	Louisville	126	146	+20
42	Syracuse	87	107	+20
45	UC-Davis	31	50	+19
46	Georgia State	61	79	+18
46	Southern*	157	175	+18
48	Gonzaga*	124	141	+17
48	Southern Illinois	158	175	+17
48	St. Mary's	131	148	+17
48	Stetson	82	99	+17

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

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‘Accountant 2’ Opens Today: CPAs Are Geeked Up For Their Bean-Counting Badass ‘John Wick’

Wall Street Journal, Accountants Get Their Dream: Another Movie About Accounting:

CPAs are geeked for the morale boost that only the bean-counting badass in the movie can provide; ‘It’s our ‘John Wick.‘’

Leigh Olphin got fed up at work recently while trying to learn how to use new AI automation software. So the 37-year-old accountant did what she often does when she returns home from a stressful day: Watch “The Accountant.”

Like many other people in her field, Olphin is obsessed with the 2016 film because it bestows ass-kicking qualities on someone in her decidedly nerdy profession. The movie stars Ben Affleck as Christian Wolff, an accountant with autism who uses both math and martial arts in his job auditing the books for corrupt businessmen.

“It’s our ‘John Wick,’” she said, referring to the movie franchise centered on a legendary hit man. ...

“The Accountant 2” hits theaters next week, 10 days after the tax-filing deadline and not a moment too soon for the film’s biggest fans. The profession has faced challenge after challenge since the original movie came out, including auditing shortfalls, a worker shortage and the existential threat of AI. In short, accountants could use a morale boost. ...

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Sam: Distribution Through Taxation Versus Legal Rules, And The Epistemic Limits Of Law-and-Economics

Erick Sam (Utah), Distribution Through Taxation Versus Legal Rules, and the Epistemic Limits of Law-and-Economics, 2024 Utah L. Rev. 1047 :

This Article develops an epistemic critique of the view, widely held in law-and-economics, that legal rules should always be chosen for efficiency and that redistribution to produce a fair distribution should be conducted solely through the tax-and-transfer system. In place of this orthodox view, I develop an alternative distributive theory.

The canonical ‘double distortion’ argument for the orthodox position, formulated by Kaplow and Shavell (1994), claims that opting for efficient legal rules minimizes economic distortions and maximizes aggregate social wealth, some of which can then be redistributed via the tax-and-transfer system to those who would have been better off under the distributionally fair rules, thereby producing Pareto improvements relative to that latter regime.

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Trump Executive Order Targets College (And Law School) Accreditors (Including ABA), Blames DEI For Low Standards And Poor Student Outcomes

Reforming Accreditation to Strengthen Higher Education:

The American Bar Association’s Council of the Section of Legal Education and Admissions to the Bar (Council), which is the sole federally recognized accreditor for Juris Doctor programs, has required law schools to “demonstrate by concrete action a commitment to diversity and inclusion” including by “commit[ting] to having a student body [and faculty] that is diverse with respect to gender, race, and ethnicity.”  As the Attorney General has concluded and informed the Council, the discriminatory requirement blatantly violates the Supreme Court’s decision in Students for Fair Admissions, Inc. v. President and Fellows of Harvard College, 600 U.S. 181 (2023).  Though the Council subsequently suspended its enforcement while it considers proposed revisions, this standard and similar unlawful mandates must be permanently eradicated.

• Fact Sheet: President Donald J. Trump Reforms Accreditation to Strengthen Higher Education
• Secretary of Education Statements on President Trump’s Education Executive Orders

• Canadian Lawyer, Trump Threatens to Revoke American Bar Association's Law School Accreditor Status
• Reuters, Trump Executive Order Says ABA's Role as Law School Accreditor May Be Revoked

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Detroit Law Review Symposium: Law School 101—An Exploration Of Legal Pedagogy

Symposium, Law School 101: An Exploration Of Legal Pedagogy, 101 U. Det. L. Rev. 257-374 (2024): 

• Katya S. Cronin (George Washington), Value-Centered Lawyering: Reshaping the Law School Curriculum to Promote Well-Being, Quality Client Representation, and a Thriving Legal Field, 101 U. Det. L. Rev. 257 (2024)
• Chance Meyer (New England) & Nicole Noël (New England), The Gray Box of Legal Analysis: Disentangling Knowledge and Skill, 101 U. Det. Mercy L. Rev. 287 (2024)

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Thomas: Rethinking Tax Information—The Case For Quarterly 1099s

Kathleen DeLaney Thomas (North Carolina; Google Scholar), Rethinking Tax Information: The Case for Quarterly 1099s, 97 S. Cal. L. Rev. 1527 (2024): 

When an electricity provider wants customers to pay their bills monthly, it sends them a bill each month. Yet, this is not how the tax system works— at least not for independent contractors. Their taxes are due quarterly, but they receive a tax statement (Form 1099) only one time a year. It is up to the individual, then, to know when their taxes are due and how to pay them, and it is on that individual to estimate how much they owe each quarter. As a result, compliance for independent contractors—particularly for online platform workers—tends to be lacking. Failure to pay their estimated taxes subjects these taxpayers to potential penalties and causes the government to collect less tax revenue.

There is a simple—yet entirely overlooked—reform that could vastly improve compliance when it comes to paying estimated taxes: third-party information returns (Form 1099s) should be issued to taxpayers on a quarterly basis. The idea is straightforward and intuitive.

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A Growing Chorus Of Law School Deans And Faculty Are Speaking Out Against Trump’s Threat To The Rule Of Law

Law.com, Growing Chorus of Law School Faculty, Leadership Speaking Out Against Threats to Rule of Law:

In the wake of the Trump administration's recent string of unprecedented actions against law firms, courts and universities, an increasing number of law professors and leaders have expressed concerns over constitutional violations and threats to the rule of law.

Faculty at New York University School of Law are the latest to join law school faculty at Harvard, Yale, Stanford, and the University of California at Los Angeles, Berkeley and Davis in issuing an open letter to condemn the administration's recent actions.

“The Administration’s executive orders targeting individual lawyers and law firms have no basis in law and are contrary to the protections of our Constitution,” the April 17 NYU Law faculty letter states. “Similarly, government threats to impeach judges based on disagreements with their judicial decisions are inconsistent with the fundamental principles underlying judicial independence, principles that have been respected by political actors of all stripes for over 200 years. An independent judiciary is essential to the preservation of the rule of law and our most basic constitutional rights.” ...

“I think [the legal community is] worried that there's going to be a loss of independence,” retired Judge Jeremy Fogel, who is executive director of the Berkeley Judicial Institute, told Law.com in an interview. “People worry that they won't be able to say certain things, that lawyers won't be able to represent certain people, that judges will be intimidated for doing certain things. There are a lot of fears.”

However, since many law deans—including most of the so-called T-14—are bound by university neutrality policies or similar guidelines that prevent or discourage them from making statements on political issues, most T-14 deans have largely remained quiet, with a handful of exceptions.

University of California, Berkeley School of Law Dean Erwin Chemerinsky, who has long been outspoken against the Trump administration’s actions, is the only dean to sign the letter organized by his school's faculty. ...

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2025-26 U.S. News Omnibus Specialty Rankings

The new 2025-26 U.S. News Specialty Rankings include the rankings for 13 specialty programs at 195 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	11	11	9	18	14	8	9	3	11	3	21	10.1
2	Harvard*	1	24	2	1	3	3	7	6	12	2	108	12	34	16.5
3	NYU*	2	2	5	6	1	35	7	34	3	1	70	1	56	17.2
4	Michigan*	11	4	9	6	3	27	18	20	12	8	27	6	73	17.2
5	Stanford*	5	14	4	1	1	14	12	7	1	10	96	18	64	19.0
6	UC-Berkeley*	7	4	5	6	7	48	2	53	2	6	70	31	16	19.8
7	Northwestern*	12	12	14	13	15	7	44	46	23	22	34	3	19	20.3
8	UCLA*	8	24	16	11	8	29	6	17	12	17	103	10	5	20.5
9	Duke*	12	31	12	17	9	72	14	26	12	13	27	10	83	26.0
10	Columbia*	2	19	5	4	9	23	5	46	12	3	103	8	112	27.0
11	George Washington	31	24	31	44	32	48	18	17	5	8	34	23	43	27.5
12	Texas	18	31	14	13	16	35	38	34	12	26	96	12	29	28.8
13	Penn*	5	31	9	6	3	48	25	20	9	18	110	22	73	29.2
14	UC-Irvine*	41	14	26	26	21	27	30	59	35	29	8	8	56	29.2
15	Fordham	18	14	26	23	16	12	76	59	20	19	70	23	5	29.3
16	Virginia*	8	53	5	6	3	59	25	30	20	11	110	5	73	31.4
17	Yale*	8	8	1	4	9	86	21	12	45	3	107	15	96	31.9
18	Ohio State	35	53	31	30	16	1	44	17	73	41	17	35	43	33.5
19	Vanderbilt	15	31	17	13	9	35	12	40	26	19	89	50	83	33.8
20	Boston University	28	31	23	26	21	72	64	2	12	29	34	15	96	34.8
21	Washington Univ.	20	19	18	18	21	29	64	40	31	19	110	35	34	35.2
22	Arizona State	41	60	31	44	32	9	16	13	53	37	3	35	96	36.2
23	Minnesota	20	19	19	19	21	72	30	29	24	26	70	26	96	36.2
24	American	55	2	55	56	29	35	56	20	6	6	89	41	24	36.5
24	Temple	55	53	55	44	51	35	62	13	35	13	27	29	2	36.5
26	Cornell*	16	31	12	13	21	48	46	46	26	11	70	31	112	37.2
27	Chicago	2	43	2	1	9	86	64	59	24	13	102	6	73	37.2
28	Emory	23	84	26	23	34	35	38	24	35	29	70	41	24	37.4
29	North Carolina	23	53	23	19	21	48	50	30	31	55	10	18	112	37.9
30	Maryland	51	8	41	66	29	9	21	4	53	45	93	53	24	38.2
31	UC-Davis	31	76	19	35	16	23	16	59	31	22	89	26	64	39.0
32	Florida	23	112	35	19	40	14	30	53	45	55	61	2	48	41.3
33	Boston College	35	43	35	35	40	48	50	34	31	29	51	12	96	41.5
34	Texas A&M	51	60	41	44	75	3	25	44	6	45	27	67	56	41.8
35	William & Mary	41	90	19	26	21	35	56	59	35	29	27	53	56	42.1
36	Houston	62	84	65	53	57	23	36	9	12	71	15	41	29	42.8
37	Denver	78	8	65	72	40	35	21	80	45	41	17	53	8	43.3
38	Indiana (Maurer)	31	84	41	35	40	48	38	34	35	22	61	26	96	45.5
39	Georgia	28	60	37	26	51	72	50	40	58	22	110	41	34	48.4
40	UC Law - SF*	62	43	55	72	51	14	21	16	58	71	110	29	48	50.0
41	Wisconsin	35	43	23	35	34	72	38	69	73	37	34	41	126	50.8
42	Univ. of Washington*	55	43	55	35	34	102	38	34	35	37	44	41	112	51.2
43	USC	16	71	26	23	29	48	64	69	45	55	110	15	96	51.3
44	Miami	41	24	62	56	68	29	38	76	63	29	93	31	73	52.5
45	Wake Forest	41	112	41	44	34	48	56	24	63	82	7	67	73	53.2
46	Case Western	55	60	65	56	75	67	30	13	73	13	51	90	48	53.5
46	University of Arizona	51	60	37	44	57	59	30	46	85	45	8	62	112	53.5
48	Notre Dame	26	60	19	30	57	102	50	80	73	26	79	41	64	54.4
49	Tulane*	31	31	55	35	40	72	25	91	73	29	110	62	64	55.2
50	Cardozo	51	31	47	35	21	5	134	80	6	67	110	41	96	55.7
51	Rutgers	71	12	55	56	40	102	64	59	81	45	11	76	56	56.0
52	Loyola-Chicago	78	60	70	83	82	29	86	4	45	45	61	67	21	56.2
53	UNLV	55	24	86	66	68	9	64	46	35	131	1	53	96	56.5
54	Colorado	41	76	47	44	57	72	7	76	45	55	84	53	83	56.9
55	Northeastern	96	19	65	83	51	59	102	9	26	45	27	118	64	58.8
56	Brooklyn	35	24	47	53	20	67	112	91	81	67	61	50	64	59.4
57	Illinois	41	101	47	30	40	35	86	69	53	55	110	62	48	59.8
58	Iowa	26	90	37	19	57	59	50	76	53	55	110	53	96	60.1
59	Florida State	41	121	37	30	34	119	18	53	58	55	110	35	96	62.1
60	Pepperdine	88	43	47	56	82	2	112	109	85	55	84	23	34	63.1
61	Georgia State	55	43	41	77	40	86	102	3	73	82	110	62	48	63.2
62	Villanova	71	43	70	66	57	102	76	69	45	77	70	35	43	63.4
63	Howard	96	31	62	56	51	35	102	91	63	82	70	82	29	65.4
64	Utah	55	60	55	56	34	150	7	30	26	67	110	67	137	65.7
65	San Diego	62	125	31	56	40	150	50	59	20	55	110	18	83	66.1
66	Washington & Lee	35	76	47	35	57	86	64	80	63	41	110	62	112	66.8
67	SMU	41	53	70	66	40	150	64	46	63	71	110	53	48	67.3
68	Alabama	35	84	26	35	57	110	76	59	115	98	89	31	73	68.3
69	South Carolina	73	31	86	66	57	102	64	99	104	98	61	50	12	69.5
70	Suffolk	88	8	122	118	90	18	76	46	45	116	3	145	29	69.5
71	Oregon	62	125	70	56	75	12	7	128	99	77	1	67	137	70.5
72	Kansas	62	112	70	44	102	29	25	109	89	77	17	82	112	71.5
73	BYU	20	135	47	53	68	67	86	143	58	45	110	41	73	72.8
74	Loyola-L.A.	78	90	86	90	75	102	118	59	73	125	34	18	7	73.5
75	Tennessee	28	14	70	44	75	72	102	53	115	116	61	82	126	73.7
76	Seton Hall	78	71	79	77	82	95	97	9	63	77	110	76	48	74.0
77	Lewis & Clark	78	71	70	98	90	95	2	109	73	98	17	111	64	75.1
78	St. John's	78	101	79	77	57	72	124	109	63	77	17	118	21	76.4
79	Richmond	62	135	47	77	40	72	56	91	35	82	110	53	137	76.7
80	Pittsburgh*	78	101	65	83	51	110	86	34	58	45	110	35	151	77.5
81	Seattle	88	31	86	90	114	59	64	91	63	98	6	104	126	78.5
82	Stetson	96	112	98	90	90	18	76	109	149	116	3	76	1	79.5
83	Michigan State	62	53	98	72	82	59	86	109	63	71	110	95	83	80.2
84	Chicago-Kent	73	125	79	72	114	86	124	80	9	137	44	95	12	80.8
85	Santa Clara	62	90	86	83	68	86	97	86	4	37	110	82	165	81.2
86	Drexel	88	71	86	106	102	102	124	20	89	125	44	104	8	82.2
87	Hofstra	88	90	107	98	75	72	118	69	89	82	79	95	8	82.3
87	Syracuse	88	125	86	83	68	72	86	59	99	82	110	104	8	82.3
89	Wayne State	78	60	70	72	68	128	102	53	89	55	110	53	151	83.8
90	Connecticut	62	76	62	66	90	95	97	76	115	45	100	67	151	84.8
91	George Mason	41	169	41	30	90	119	102	122	26	82	110	90	96	86.0
92	Baltimore	127	4	107	139	57	95	76	122	89	98	51	82	96	87.9
93	Pace	113	121	153	130	118	18	1	86	132	67	110	82	19	88.5
94	Pacific	96	125	122	106	126	18	86	157	132	29	44	104	16	89.3
95	DePaul	88	90	98	90	118	110	124	26	35	116	110	104	56	89.6
96	Baylor	78	135	107	90	90	29	134	91	89	148	79	95	3	89.8
97	Missouri-Columbia	78	165	86	56	90	5	112	109	63	109	110	67	126	90.5
98	Oklahoma	73	135	86	77	82	95	86	40	104	98	110	90	112	91.4
99	Indiana (McKinney)	96	121	79	83	102	150	102	30	104	71	17	76	165	92.0
100	Marquette	108	121	107	90	82	48	86	109	81	116	17	111	137	93.3

*Denotes schools that did not submit statistical information to U.S.News. From the U.S News methodology:  "schools that declined to provide statistical information to U.S. News had their academic peer ratings programmatically discarded before any computations were made. Nonresponders were still scored using the full complement of eligible ratings submitted by peer schools, but any ratings they made of other schools were omitted." For the complete list of boycotting schools for the past three years, see Law Schools That Boycotted The U.S. News Rankings.

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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Blank & Osofsky: Introduction To Automated Agencies — The Transformation Of Government Guidance

Joshua D. Blank (UC-Irvine; Google Scholar) & Leigh Osofsky (North Carolina; Google Scholar), Introduction to Automated Agencies: The Transformation of Government Guidance (Cambridge University Press, 2025):

Administrative agencies that are responsible for running federal government operations have increasingly turned to chatbots, virtual assistants, and other automated tools to offer guidance to the public about the law. Together, these tools can be thought of as “automated legal guidance.” These tools promise to be an easy-to-use source of information about underlying legal rules. But there is an unexpected catch. To make federal law accessible, the tools often flatten out complexities in the underlying legal system. As a result, when automated legal guidance tools offer “answers,” or explanations in response to questions, they may not, in fact, be accurate representations of the underlying law. Unfortunately, members of the public may rely upon these tools, unknowingly, at their peril.

Our book, Automated Agencies: The Transformation of Government Guidance (Cambridge University Press, forthcoming, 2025), which we introduce in this chapter, builds on years of research we have undertaken to explore these automated legal guidance systems. In conducting our research, we interviewed federal agency officials who are responsible for creating and managing automated legal guidance tools. Their answers to the questions we posed offer insights into what agencies think about these tools and the roles they are serving.

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Oei Presents Global Tax Decluttering Today At Missouri

Shu-Yi Oei (Duke; Google Scholar) presents Global Tax Decluttering, 77 U.C. L.J. __ (2025) (with Diane Ring (Boston College; Google Scholar)) at Missouri today as part of its Tax Policy Colloquium hosted by David Gamage:

Major global players—most prominently the OECD and European Union—have recently begun advocating that countries “declutter” their tax systems to tidy up, repeal, or eliminate pre-existing domestic anti-abuse tax rules. The reasoning is that these country-level rules are now duplicative or burdensome in light of a new global tax agreement spearheaded by the OECD and G20 and multilaterally agreed upon in 2021 by over 140 countries. Yet, this new multilateral regime is still in the process of being rolled out and is entirely untested.

In this article, we examine this recently emergent “tax decluttering movement” and present an analytical framework for understanding it. We show how the recent push for tax decluttering belies a convergence of interests among several powerful actors (international organizations, certain countries and regional blocs, and businesses interests).

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ABA Releases Class Of 2024 Jobs Data: ‘Maximum Credit’ Jobs Rate Rises To 89.7%, Up From 88.0% Last Year

ABA Legal Education Section Releases Employment Data For Graduating Law Class of 2024: 

Employment data for the graduating law class of 2024, as reported by American Bar Association-approved law schools accepting new J.D. students to the ABA Section of Legal Education and Admissions to the Bar on April 2, 2025, is now publicly available.

An online table provides select national outcomes and side-by-side comparisons for the classes of 2023 and 2024. Further reports on employment outcomes, including links to individual school outcomes and spreadsheets aggregating those reports, are available now on the ABA Required Disclosures page of the Section’s website. Schools can make corrections to their individual school outcomes for the class of 2024 until Friday, June 13, 2025. These corrections will be reflected in the Employment Summary Reports that are required to be posted publicly on their websites, as well as on the ABA Required Disclosures page. ...

Managing Director Jenn Rosato Perea responded:  “Despite initial concerns that the Class of 2024 employment outcomes might be impacted by an anticipated contraction in the market and increased size of the graduating class,  the percentage of recent law school graduates employed in full-time, long-term Bar Admission Required/Anticipated or JD Advantage jobs has reached another record-high – which is good news for the graduates.”

For the class of 2024, the aggregated school data shows that 33,931 or 87.1% of the 2024 graduates of the 194 law schools enrolling students and approved by the ABA to offer the J.D. degree were employed in full-time, long-term Bar Admission Required/Anticipated or J.D. Advantage jobs roughly 10 months after graduation. That compares to 30,160 or 85.6% of the graduates reporting similar full-time, long-term jobs last year. The actual number of full-time, long-term Bar Admission Required/Anticipated or J.D. Advantage jobs increased by 3,771, +12.5% year-over-year. ...

The current U.S. News law school rankings methodology defines "maximum credit" jobs as:

Outcomes 10 months after graduation (weighted 33%): This measures the extent to which graduates obtain the most in-demand jobs — namely those that are long term, full time and requiring (or taking advantage of) bar passage. Maximum credit was assigned for graduates with school-funded fellowships — as long as those fellowships were otherwise full-time, long-term jobs in which bar passage was required or the J.D. degree was an advantage. Maximum credit was assigned to law school graduates pursuing additional graduate studies.

89.7% of the Class of 2024 secured maximum credit jobs for U.S. News rankings purposes (up from 88.0% for the Class of 2023). 1.2% of the Class of 2024 secured law school funded full-time, long-term bar passage required/JD advantage jobs (up from 1.1% for the Class of 2023). 1.3% of the Class of 2024 pursued additional graduate studies (the same percentage as the Class of 2023).

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Organ: Astonishingly Strong Employment Outcomes For The Class of 2024

Jerry Organ (St. Thomas), Astonishingly Strong Employment Outcomes for the Class of 2024:

The ABA will be releasing data on employment outcomes for 2024 graduates of all ABA-accredited law schools in the coming days.  But I went and gathered the data from all ABA-accredited law schools to see how things turned out for the class of 2024, and the results are stunning!  Absolutely, unbelievably stunning!!

Across all ABA-accredited law schools outside of Puerto Rico, the number of graduates between 2023 and 2024 increased by 3,710, from 34,845 to 38,555, but the number of graduates in full-time, long-term bar passage required [FTLT BPR] jobs increased by even more — 3,731 — from 27,854 to 31,585! ...

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California Bar Allowed Non-Lawyers To Use AI To Draft February Exam Questions, Will Ask Supreme Court To Lower Cut Score

Los Angeles Times, State Bar of California Admits It Used AI to Develop Exam Questions, Triggering New Furor:

Nearly two months after hundreds of prospective California lawyers complained that their bar exams were plagued with technical problems and irregularities, the state’s legal licensing body has caused fresh outrage by admitting that some multiple-choice questions were developed with the aid of artificial intelligence.

The State Bar of California said in a news release Monday that it will ask the California Supreme Court to adjust test scores for those who took its February bar exam.

But it declined to acknowledge significant problems with its multiple-choice questions — even as it revealed that a subset of questions were recycled from a first-year law student exam, while others were developed with the assistance of AI by ACS Ventures, the State Bar’s independent psychometrician.

“The debacle that was the February 2025 bar exam is worse than we imagined,” said Mary Basick, assistant dean of academic skills at UC Irvine Law School. “I’m almost speechless. Having the questions drafted by non-lawyers using artificial intelligence is just unbelievable.”

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SSRN Tax Professor Rankings

SSRN has updated its monthly ranking of 750 American and international law school faculties and 3,000 law professors by (among other things) the number of paper downloads from the SSRN database.  Here is the new list (through April 1, 2025) of the Top 25 U.S. Tax Professors in two of the SSRN categories: all-time downloads and recent downloads (within the past 12 months):

		All-Time			Recent
1	Reuven Avi-Yonah (Michigan)	244,825	1	Reuven Avi-Yonah (Michigan)	13,376
2	Daniel Hemel (NYU)	138,934	2	Jonathan Choi (USC)	10,869
3	David Gamage (Missouri-Columbia)	131,786	3	Zachary Liscow (Yale)	8,392
4	Dan Shaviro (NYU)	130,952	4	Amy Monahan (Minnesota)	6,312
5	Lily Batchelder (NYU)	129,894	5	Daniel Hemel (NYU)	4,908
6	Darien Shanske (UC-Davis)	123,657	6	Kim Clausing (UCLA)	4,858
7	David Kamin (NYU)	116,498	7	Kristin Hickman (Minnesota)	4,538
8	Cliff Fleming (BYU)	110,058	8	Bridget Crawford (Pace)	4,511
9	Ari Glogower (Northwestern)	106,658	9	D. Dharmapala (UC-Berkeley)	3,899
10	Manoj Viswanathan (UC-SF)	105,873	10	Louis Kaplow (Harvard)	3,484
11	Rebecca Kysar (Fordham)	105,643	11	Darien Shanske (UC-Davis)	3,445
12	Mitchell Kane (NYU)	102,332	12	David Weisbach (Chicago)	3,356
13	D. Dharmapala (UC-Berkeley)	57,424	13	Ruth Mason (Virginia)	3,277
14	Michael Simkovic (USC)	52,578	14	David Gamage (Missouri-Columbia)	3,223
15	Jonathan Choi (USC)	47,714	15	Robert Sitkoff (Harvard)	3,166
16	Louis Kaplow (Harvard)	46,867	16	Brad Borden (Brooklyn)	3,161
17	Bridget Crawford (Pace)	44,351	17	Ed Fox (Michigan)	2,753
18	Paul Caron (Pepperdine)	43,079	18	Kyle Rozema (Northwestern)	2,687
19	Richard Ainsworth (Boston Univ.)	41,728	19	Michael Simkovic (USC)	2,669
20	Robert Sitkoff (Harvard)	37,931	20	Steve Johnson (Florida State)	2,534
21	Amy Monahan (Minnesota)	37,701	21	Ellen Aprill (Loyola-L.A.)	2,492
22	Brad Borden (Brooklyn)	36,500	22	Young Ran (Christine) Kim (Cardozo)	2,371
23	Ruth Mason (Virginia)	35,464	23	Richard Pomp (Connecticut)	2,349
24	Kim Clausing (UCLA)	34,512	24	Brian Galle (Georgetown)	2,328
25	Vic Fleischer (UC-Irvine)	32,159	25	Edward McCaffery (USC)	2,171

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Large Language Scholarship: Generative AI In The Legal Academy

Alan Z. Rozenshtein (Minnesota; Google Scholar) & Kevin Frazier (Texas), Large Language Scholarship: Generative AI in the Legal Academy:

Rapid advances in artificial intelligence (AI) have ushered in an era where machines meaningfully assist—and in some cases independently produce—legal reasoning, doctrinal synthesis, and scholarly writing. This Article introduces the concept of “Large Language Scholarship,” arguing that AI’s integration will significantly transform legal academia, altering both the quantity and quality of scholarship with profound implications for law professors, law schools, and the legal system. Unlike existing scholarship that focuses on preliminary demonstrations of AI’s capabilities and the associated ethical concerns, we offer a comprehensive analysis of the systemic institutional impacts of AI adoption.

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Law Schools That Boycotted The U.S. News Rankings

2023-2024 (Rank)	2024-2025 (Rank)	2025-2026 (Rank)
Stanford (1)	Stanford (1)	Stanford (1)
Yale (1)	Yale (1)	Yale (1)
Virginia (8)	Virginia (4)	Virginia (4)
Penn (4)	Penn (4)	Penn (5)
Duke (5)	Duke (4)	Duke (6)
Harvard (5)	Harvard (4)	Harvard (6)
Michigan (10)	Michigan (9)	Michigan (8)
NYU (5)	NYU (9)	NYU (8)
Columbia (8)	Columbia (8)	Columbia (10)
Northwestern (10)	Northwestern (9)	Northwestern (10)
UCLA (14)	UCLA (13)	UCLA (12)
UC-Berkeley (10)	UC-Berkeley (12)	UC-Berkeley (13)
Georgetown (15)	Georgetown (14)	Georgetown (14)
Vanderbilt (16)	(19)	(14)
Cornell (13)	Cornell (14)	Cornell (18)
Wisconsin (40)	(36)	(28)
UC-Irvine (35)	UC-Irvine (42)	UC-Irvine (38)
Connecticut (71)	(55)	(50)
UC-Davis (60)	UC-Davis (55)	(50)
Univ. of Washington (49)	Univ. of Washington (48)	Univ. of Washington (50)
Penn State-Dickinson (89)	Penn State-Dickinson (75)	Penn State-Dickinson (59)
(69)	Cardozo (61)	(63)
Maryland (51)	(55)	(63)
St. John's (60)	St. John's (68)	(63)
Northeastern (71)	(68)	(68)
Penn State-Univ. Park (80)	Penn State-Univ. Park (68)	Penn State-Univ. Park (68)
Nebraska (89)	(82)	(71)
Tulane (71)	Tulane (78)	Tulane (71)
Loyola-Chicago (84)	(78)	(79)
Pittsburgh (89)	Pittsburgh (91)	Pittsburgh (79)
UC Law - SF (60)	UC Law - SF (82)	UC Law - SF (88)
American (89)	American (98)	(104)
Rutgers (109)	Rutgers (103)	(104)
Syracuse (122)	Syracuse (120)	(107)
Brooklyn (111)	Brooklyn (114)	(117)
New Hampshire (105)	New Hampshire (98)	New Hampshire (125)
Seattle (111)	Seattle (114)	(127)
Campbell (125)	Campbell (134)	Campbell (134)
Detroit Mercy (141)	(136)	(134)
Loyola-New Orleans (111)	Loyola-New Orleans (130)	(134)
South Texas (162)	(150)	(138)
Gonzaga (99)	Gonzaga (120)	Gonzaga (141)
Idaho (141)	Idaho (145)	Idaho (141)
Quinnipiac (146)	Quinnipiac (143)	Quinnipiac (141)
Creighton (155)	Creighton (153)	(148)
Mitchell | Hamline (167)	Mitchell | Hamline (164)	(154)
Southwestern (141)	Southwestern (145)	Southwestern (154)
San Francisco (165)	San Francisco (165)	San Francisco (166)
Roger Williams (171)	Roger Williams (172)	Roger Williams (169)
Touro (167)	(168)	(169)
Capital (175)	Capital (Tier 2)	Capital (174)
Puerto Rico (Tier 2)	Puerto Rico (Tier 2)	Puerto Rico (175)
(Tier 2)	Golden Gate (Tier 2)	(N/A)
Western Michigan (Tier 2)	Western Michigan (Tier 2)	(N/A)
Appalachian (Tier 2)	Appalachian (Tier 2)	Appalachian (Tier 2)
Barry (Tier 2)	Barry (Tier 2)	Barry (Tier 2)
Cal-Western (175)	Cal-Western (Tier 2)	Cal-Western (Tier 2)
Florida A&M (Tier 2)	Florida A&M (Tier 2)	Florida A&M (Tier 2)
Inter-American (Tier 2)	Inter-American (Tier 2)	Inter-American (Tier 2)
John Marshall (GA) (171)	John Marshall (GA) (176)	John Marshall (GA) (Tier 2)
North Carolina Central (175)	(Tier 2)	North Carolina Central (Tier 2)
Pontifical Catholic (Tier 2)	Pontifical Catholic (Tier 2)	Pontifical Catholic (Tier 2)
Southern (Tier 2)	Southern (Tier 2)	Southern (Tier 2)
Texas Southern (Tier 2)	Texas Southern (Tier 2)	Texas Southern (Tier 2)

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Soled & Book: Transformative Technology And Shortening The Statute Of Limitations Applicable To Taxpayers

Jay A. Soled (Rutgers; Google Scholar) & Leslie Book (Villanova; Google Scholar), Transformative Technology and Shortening the Statute of Limitations Applicable to Taxpayers, 60 U. Rich. L. Rev. ___ (2025):

When it comes to submitting tax returns and paying taxes, most taxpayers understand the nature of their civic duties and do so dutifully, if not willingly. However, many taxpayers fail to grasp why Congress provides the IRS with such an elongated time period—namely, three years—to audit their tax returns and propose additional taxes. Indeed, when the IRS exercises its oversight authority by auditing taxpayers' returns, records may no longer be available, and memories may be dulled.

The time the IRS takes to assess additional tax reflects a balancing of interests: Too short a time to assess additional tax may embolden tax cheating and undermine confidence in our tax system; too long a time to assess additional tax imposes taxpayer and third-party administrative burdens.

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Oei & Ring: Global Tax Decluttering

Shu-Yi Oei (Duke; Google Scholar) & Diane M. Ring (Boston College; Google Scholar), Global Tax Decluttering, 77 U.C. L.J. __ (2025):

Major global players—most prominently the OECD and European Union—have recently begun advocating that countries “declutter” their tax systems to tidy up, repeal, or eliminate pre-existing domestic anti-abuse tax rules. The reasoning is that these country-level rules are now duplicative or burdensome in light of a new global tax agreement spearheaded by the OECD and G20 and multilaterally agreed upon in 2021 by over 140 countries. Yet, this new multilateral regime is still in the process of being rolled out and is entirely untested.

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The Economy Is Frightening. Law School Won’t Save You.

GQ, The Economy Is Frightening. Law School Won’t Save You.:

When it was reported last month that law school applications are up 20%, some of us who graduated around the 2008 recession thought of that one friend, the liberal artist-activist who, after six months of financial uncertainty, became conveniently passionate about the law. He got busy. He got a haircut. He got a Big Law job he never spoke about except when brandishing his pro bono bona fides.

Law student applications are a bearish indicator—the bearish indicator if you’re young and insufferably promising. Morgan Stanley is revising up the chance of a recession. Gen Z’ers are revising up the chances Aiden takes the LSAT.

He should check in with my one friend before he does. Big Law attorneys’ wages, which stagnated decades ago, show no sign of recovery with AI encroaching on billable hours. And the prestige associated with both Big Law School and Big Law is under direct threat from the White House. The Trump administration issued a number of executive orders targeting lawyers, including those that have investigated him: taking away the security clearance they need to do business, inquiring about their DEI practices, promising sanctions against those that sue the government. Already, the law firms Paul Weiss, Skadden Arps, and Perkins Coie have cut deals with the White House, promising to spend firm hours that would have once been devoted to pro bono work grooming the administration’s pet causes. ...

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Cauble: Taxing Composite Transactions

Emily Cauble (Wisconsin; Google Scholar), Taxing Composite Transactions, 77 SMU L. Rev. 349 (2024):

In a variety of contexts, taxpayers engage in composite transactions — essentially two transactions in one. For instance, when an individual sells property for less than its fair market value to a friend or relative, the transaction involves a sale and a gift. As another example, from time to time, retailers run promotions offering to rebate the price of merchandise if a team wins a sporting event. A buyer of the merchandise, effectively, makes a purchase and also places a bet on the sporting event's outcome.

Tax law's treatment of composite transactions is not uniform. In some contexts, tax law fully bifurcates these transactions into their separate components. Under this bifurcated approach, a taxpayer who engages in a composite transaction receives the same tax treatment as a taxpayer who goes through the motions of engaging in the component transactions separately. In other contexts, tax law adopts a collapsed approach under which taxpayers obtain markedly different tax treatment by engaging in a composite transaction instead of carrying out the components as separate transactions.

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Forward Looking Academic Impact Rankings For U.S. Law Schools

Matthew Sag (Emory; Google Scholar), Forward Looking Academic Impact Rankings for U.S. Law Schools, 51 Fla. St. U. L. Rev. 763 (2024):

Although the very concept of law school rankings is currently under fire, rankings abolitionism is misplaced. Given the number, diversity, and geographic dispersion of the more than 190 law schools fully accredited by the American Bar Association, rankings are essential to enable various stakeholders to make comparisons between schools. However, the current rankings landscape is dire. The U.S News law school rankings rely on poorly designed, highly subjective surveys to gauge “reputational strength,” rather than looking to easily available, objective citation data that is more valid and reliable. Would-be usurpers of U.S. News use better data but make other arbitrary choices that limit and distort their rankings. One flaw common to U.S. News and those who would displace it is the fetishization of minor differences in placement that do not reflect actual differences in substance. This information is worse than trivial: it is actively misleading. This Article proposes a new set of law school rankings free from all of these defects.

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2025-26 U.S. News Trial Advocacy Rankings

The new 2025-26 U.S. News Trial Advocacy Rankings include the trial advocacy programs at 195 law schools (the faculty survey had a 47% response rate). Here are the Top 50:

Rank	School
1	Stetson
2	Temple
3	Baylor
4	Samford
5	Fordham
5	UCLA
7	Loyola-L.A.
8	Denver
8	Drexel
8	Hofstra
8	Syracuse
12	Chicago-Kent
12	Mercer
12	South Carolina
12	South Texas
16	Pacific
16	St. Mary's
16	UC-Berkeley
19	Northwestern
19	Pace
21	Georgetown
21	Loyola-Chicago
21	St. John's
24	American
24	Emory
24	Maryland
24	Nova
24	Ohio Northern
29	Houston
29	Howard
29	Inter-American (PR)
29	Suffolk
29	Texas
34	Georgia
34	Harvard
34	Illinois-Chicago
34	Pepperdine
34	Quinnipiac
34	Texas Tech
34	Washington Univ.
41	Campbell
41	Missouri-Kansas City
43	George Washington
43	Louisiana State
43	Ohio State
43	SUNY-Buffalo
43	Villanova
48	Akron
48	Case Western
48	Florida
48	Georgia State
48	Illinois
48	Seton Hall
48	SMU
48	UC Law - SF

2024-25 U.S. News Trial Advocacy Rankings

2025-26 U.S. News Specialty Rankings:

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The Professional Employer Organization Regulatory Regime

Ursula Ramsey (North Carolina), The Professional Employer Organization Regulatory Regime, 20 UC L. SF Bus. J. 95 (2024)

Employment taxes constitute over thirty percent of the revenue collected by the Internal Revenue Service (“IRS”). For fiscal year 2022, the IRS’s employment tax collections totaled over 1.3 billion dollars. Over the past few decades, a new industry has emerged that provides payroll, human resources, and employment tax services to its small to mid-sized business clients.to its small to mid-sized business clients payroll, human resources, and employment tax services. On behalf of business clients, these professional employer organizations (“PEOs”) remit the employment taxes associated with 216 billion dollars in worksite employee wages. This number represents the wages of four million worksite employees. Though there are 487 PEOs operating in the United States with over 170,000 client companies, the industry has received little scholarly study. Beyond the government’s interest in the efficient collection of employment taxes, regulation in the PEO industry warrants attention to ensure that those 170,000 small businesses receive the services for which they contract. Additionally, regulation in the industry warrants attention to ensure that those four million workers receive the protections to which they are entitled by law.

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Clarke Presents Apportioned Direct Taxes Today At Columbia

Conor Clarke (Washington University; Google Scholar) presents Apportioned Direct Taxes (with Ari Glogower (Northwestern; Google Scholar)) at Columbia today as part of its Davis Polk & Wardwell Tax Policy Colloquium hosted by Michael Love:

The Constitution requires that Congress apportion any “direct” tax among the states by population. This once-dormant provision is now the most important constitutional limitation on Congress’s taxing power. Last year, in Moore v. United States, the Supreme Court seriously considered, for the first time in decades, whether to invalidate an Act of Congress as an unapportioned direct tax. While the law survived, Moore signals a new era in which scholars and policymakers must again take apportionment seriously. Yet the apportionment requirement remains poorly understood.

This Article provides a new account of apportionment by examining how Congress and Treasury actually designed and implemented apportioned direct taxes. 

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Legal Ed News Roundup

• ABA Journal, Conservative Group Sues ABA Over Legal Opportunity Scholarship Fund Program
• ABA Journal, House Committee Drops Information Request About Law Clinics Amid ‘Ongoing Negotiations’ With Northwestern
• Above the Law, Law School Cutting Scholarships For Students Who Don’t Commit Fast Enough?
• Above the Law, T14 Law School’s Faculty Shows Biglaw What A Spine Looks Like
• The Alligator, University of Florida Law Student Trespassed From Campus After Racist, Antisemitic Social Media Posts
• Peter Berkowitz (Hoover Institution), Harvard Law School Professors Politicize the Rule of Law
• Bloomberg Law, Cornell Law Grad Quits Simpson Thacher as Firm ‘Capitulates’ to Trump
• Law.com, ‘White Students Not Eligible to Apply’: ABA Facing Lawsuit Over Race-Based Law School Scholarship 

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Roberts: The Tax Trench Deepens

Tracey M. Roberts (Cumberland; Google Scholar), The Tax Trench Deepens, 28 Fla. Tax Rev. ___ (2025):

Congress, long divided, has been in gridlock for decades. The result has been regulatory ossification. Existing statutes lack the flexibility to manage the country’s many technological, social, environmental, sectoral, and market challenges. However, without a Senate super-majority vote to override the filibuster, new legislation fails. While the budget reconciliation process has provided one of the few pathways around the filibuster, that process is limited to budgetary outlays and revenue measures. Consequently, a “tax trench” has been worn from Congress repeatedly pushing major regulatory and public benefits legislation through the process as tax provisions. Now, the tax trench is set to deepen. Following a spate of cases decided in 2024, U.S. Supreme Court has placed a series of checks on federal regulatory authority, discretion, and enforcement capacity. 

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Are Appellate Clinics Effective?

Xiao Wang (Virginia), Are Appellate Clinics Effective?, 31 Clin. L. Rev. 427 (2025):

Law school clinics are integral to legal education, offering students practical experience while serving clients in need and affecting the law more broadly. But despite the enormous investments in experiential learning that law schools make each year, there remains a lack of comprehensive research assessing the efficacy of clinics in serving clients.

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