University Of Cambridge Hosts Conference Today On Tax, Public Finance, And The Rule Of Law

The two-day 6th Annual Tax Policy Conference on Tax, Public Finance and the Rule of Law concludes today at the Centre for Tax Law at the University of Cambridge Faculty of Law. U.S. Tax Prof presentations include:

Alex Raskolnikov (Columbia), Distributional Limits of Legal Rules: 

The estate tax applies only to the rich, and so did the income tax for the first three decades of its existence. Many new taxes recently proposed by academics and politicians target only the rich as well. And any progressive tax takes more from the rich than from others. Yet no one has suggested that property law, contract law, antitrust or corporate law, to take just some examples, should have special, less favorable rules applicable only to the wealthy. This paper asks: why not? What is the problem with a separate law for the rich, especially given the long history of progressive taxation and the widespread academic support for the idea that legal rules should reflect distributional considerations as a general matter?

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Lubet: Law Students And Ethics

Following up on Thursday's post, Stanford Law School Promised Free Speech Training. It Delivered A Campus Joke.:  Steve Lubet (Northwestern), Law Students and Ethics:

A recent article in the Washington Free Beacon describes Stanford Law School's "mandatory half-day training session on 'freedom of speech and the norms of the legal profession'" as a "campus joke." According to the Free Beacon,

[T]he promised training wasn't much of a crash course in free speech. Instead, it was an online program that required barely a minute's effort, according to five people who completed the training as well as screenshots and recordings reviewed by the Washington Free Beacon. Students were given six weeks to watch five prerecorded videos, most about an hour long, then asked to sign a form attesting that they had done so.

The videos could be played on mute, and the form—which could be accessed without opening the training—did not ask any questions about their content, letting students tune out the modules or skip them entirely.

More worrisome was the shameless response of at least one Stanford law student:

"I watched none of the videos," one student said. "I never even opened the links. On the day the training was due, I went to the attestation link provided by the university, checked a box confirming I watched the videos, and that was the end of the matter. Whole process took 10 seconds."

Signing a false attestation is among the most serious ethical offenses a lawyer can commit. Bragging makes it worse.

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NY Times Op-Ed: Frederick Douglass Knew What False Patriotism Was, Especially On The 4th Of July

New York Times Op-Ed:  Frederick Douglass Knew What False Patriotism Was, by Esau McCaulley (Wheaton; Author, Reading While Black: African American Biblical Interpretation as an Exercise in Hope (2020)):

In 1852 Frederick Douglass delivered what may be his most famous address, “What to the Slave Is the Fourth of July?” This time of year, quotations from the speech dart around Black social media as a subtle pushback on uncomplicated celebrations of American independence.

Douglass wondered what the enslaved might say if they were called from the plantations to reflect on themes of liberty, justice and equality. How might their words differ from the prose of the free orators normally asked to comment on American ideals? There is a revolution in the reorientation of perspective, when the powerless are given space to speak. That hasn’t changed.

On Independence Day, what would those who lost loved ones in the Buffalo mass shooting have to say about justice in America? If we summoned Black women, who disproportionally experience death and trauma during childbirth, to reflect on the inalienable right to life, what hard truths might we hear about their fears for themselves and their unborn children? What musings about liberty could we expect from those who endure unjust sentencing or are pulled over for driving while Black?

Our nation’s problems and the litany of lingering injustices are not unknown to us, but there is a certain pressure to put our complaints aside around this holiday in particular. On the Fourth of July we are encouraged to unfurl our flags, belt out a rendition of “God Bless America” and grill burgers in humble gratitude. ...

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WSJ Op-Ed: Christians Err If They Give Up On America, Especially On The 4th Of July

Wall Street Journal Op-Ed:  Christians Err if They Give Up on America, by D.G. Hart (Hillsdale College; Author, From Billy Graham to Sarah Palin: Evangelicals and the Betrayal of American Conservatism (2011)): 

American Christians sometimes do unusual things in pursuit of patriotism. ... In certain sectors of the Christian world, such patriotic excess is in marked decline. For several years a gifted set of Roman Catholic thinkers, sometimes known as integralists—Edmund Waldstein and Adrian Vermeule among them—have taken a dim view of the American founding and its subsequent political traditions. For them, the cultural pathologies deforming American life stem directly from the Lockean liberalism the Founders embraced when creating a new government.

On the Protestant side, self-described Christian nationalists such as Stephen Wolfe and Doug Wilson are also, by a similar logic, implicitly critical of July Fourth festivities.  ...

For Christian critics of the American experiment, patriotism is misguided if not corrupt because the nation no longer honors God through its ceremonies and institutions. These critics also abhor the tendency to define the U.S., with all its might and wealth, as a redeemer nation. That kind of faith in America, in their view, ignores how far the nation has fallen from true religion.

The obvious challenge for Christian critics of secular America is to figure out where non-Christians—or the wrong kinds of Christians—fit in their preferred God-fearing state. That was the question the American Founders contemplated, and it’s worth contemplating the genius of their answer.

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How Sellers Of L.A. Mansions Are Dodging A Tax To Help The Homeless

Washington Post, How Sellers of L.A. Mansions are Dodging a Tax to Help the Homeless:

A tax on mansion sales in Los Angeles was intended to raise millions to fight homelessness. It hasn’t quite worked out that way.

Instead, wealthy Angelenos rebelled, putting the brakes on sales of homes priced at $5 million and above — those targeted by the initiative — with the result that the tax has raised far less money than expected since taking effect April 1. ...

 Los Angeles has long been a land of extremes, but homelessness may be the ultimate test of whether the liberal dream factory that makes entertainment for the globe can resolve a crisis of humanity in its own backyard. ...

The measure imposes a 4 percent tax on properties listed between $5 million and $10 million; at $10 million and above, the tax bumps up to 5.5 percent. ...

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Ryan & Muller: Law Schools That Overperform On The Bar Exam

Christopher J. Ryan (Louisville; Google Scholar) & Derek T. Muller (Notre Dame; Google Scholar), The Secret Sauce: Examining Law Schools that Overperform on the Bar Exam, 75 Fla. L. Rev. 65 (2023): 

Since 2010, law schools have faced declining enrollment and entering classes with lower predictors of success despite recent signs of improvement. At least partly as a result, rates at which law school graduates pass the bar exam have declined and remain at historic lows. Yet, during this time, many schools have improved their graduates’ chances of success on the bar exam, and some schools have dramatically outperformed their predicted bar exam passage rates. This Article examines which schools do so and why.

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Lesson From The Tax Court: Freedom, Taxes, And Hobbies

We have great freedoms in this country.  Freedom to express ourselves.  Freedom to fish.  Freedom to write blog posts.  Freedom to pursue any lawful activity to make money.  Truly ours is a great civilization well worth tomorrow's celebration.

But.

To riff on a well worn aphorism: with great freedom comes great responsibility.  In particular, as the Sainted Justice Holmes told us: “Taxes are what we pay for civilized society.... The constitutional right...to earn one's livelihood by any lawful calling certainly is consistent, as we all know, with the calling being taxed.” Compania General de Tabacos v. Collectorv, 275 U.S. 87, 100 (1927).

Three recent cases on Hobby Loss rules teach us about the responsibility of paying taxes to support our freedoms: you cannot lower your taxes by deducting the costs of your personal hobby.  The basic lesson is the importance of record-keeping.  That means more than keeping proper records.  It means properly using the records in a business-like manner.  In contrast, having “meticulous” records may just rescue a taxpayer who erroneously mashes up their hobby with a legitimate business activity on the same Schedule.

Two of the three cases present garden variety fact patterns where taxpayers attempt to disguise personal expenditures as business expenses.  In Donald E. Swanson v. Commissioner, T.C. Memo. 2023-81 (June 29, 2023) (Judge Pugh), the taxpayer was an emergency room doctor and amateur musician who created a vanity website for his music.  In Joseph William Sherman v. Commissionerv, T.C. Memo. 2023-63 (May 17, 2023) (Judge Jones), the retired taxpayer was an avid fisherman who also sometimes hired himself out as a guide, generating some hobby income to reduce his hobby expenses.

The third case is twisty.  In Leslyn Jo Carson & Craig Carson v. Commissioner, Dkt. No. 23086-21S (May 18, 2023) (Judge Morrison), the taxpayers mashed up a hobby activity (kids doing rodeos) with a business activity (ranching).  What triggered the audit was that the ranch was owned by the taxpayer’ wife's mom and they had an agreement that all ranching income would be allocated to Mom and all ranching expenses would be paid for and deducted by the taxpayers.  So the taxpayers essentially reported massive ranching expenses against modest hobby income.  However, these taxpayers' great recordkeeping overcame their poor reporting, winning a no-harm-no-foul ruling from the Tax Court. 

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ABA Tax Section Names 2023-2024 John Nolan Fellows

ABA Tax Section Recognizes Outstanding Young Tax Lawyers, Names Six 2020-2021 John S. Nolan Fellows:

The American Bar Association Section of Taxation announces its recipients of the 2023-2024 John S. Nolan Fellowships.

Nolan Fellows are young tax lawyers who are actively involved in the Section and have demonstrated leadership qualities and a commitment to the Section’s mission.

• Bibiana A. Cruz (Holland & Knight, Pinecrest, FL)
• Omeed Firouzi (Philadelphia Legal Assistance, Philadelphia, PA)
• Brian Gardner (Asbury Law Firm, Atlanta, GA)
• Samuel Lapin (Miller & Chevalier, Washington, D.C.)
• Joshua Savey (Morgan Lewis & Bockius, Washington, D.C.)
• Caitlin R. Tharp (Steptoe & Johnson, Washington, D.C.)

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The Bible Does Everything Critical Theory Does, But Better

Christianity Today, The Bible Does Everything Critical Theory Does, but Better:

Many people become suspicious at the mention of critical theory, especially as it applies to controversial matters of race, gender, law, and public policy. Some see the ideologies traveling under that banner as abstruse frameworks only minimally related to real-world affairs. Others see critical theory as a ruse meant to confer unearned scholarly legitimacy on highly debatable political and cultural opinions.

Christopher Watkin, an Australian scholar on religion and philosophy, wants to reorient discussions of critical theory around Scripture’s grand narrative of redemption. In Biblical Critical Theory: How the Bible’s Unfolding Story Makes Sense of Modern Life and Culture, he shows how God’s Word furnishes the tools for a better, more compelling critical theory—one that harmonizes the fragmentary truths advanced by its secular alternatives. Mark Talbot, professor of philosophy at Wheaton College, spoke with Watkin about his book. ...

You mention critical race theory, which has become a flash point for some Christians and a big reason why critical theory has a bad name among them. Where do we tend to go wrong in our attitudes toward critical theory?

Critical theory does have a particularly bad name among certain groups of Christians. It also has an unusually good name among others. Both responses are problematic because Christians should not expect worldly ideology to represent either a perfect ideal for the church or the Devil incarnate.

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A Christian Case For Racial Reparations

Daniel Philpott (Notre Dame; Google Scholar), A Christian Case for Racial Reparations:

National healing for the persistent wounds of racism, America’s original sin, can be advanced through a national apology, reparations and forgiveness. The frequent practice of apologies and reparations around the world in the past generation provide precedent for such measures. Christianity’s teaching of reconciliation and accompanying notions of sin, repentance, forgiveness, and atonement provide a strong moral basis for these measures and resonate with the rationales through which the United States’s greatest champions of civil rights and equality have fought against racism and slavery. Because racism and slavery were supported with the sanction of the state, in the name of the collective body, measures of repair may now be performed by the state, in the name of the collective body. Questions of who pays, who receives, and what form reparations take are important ones and can be answered adequately. Through collective apology, reparations, and forgiveness, the United States would enact and renew its national covenant, acting in the tradition of Abraham Lincoln, Frederick Douglass, and Martin Luther King, Jr.

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Mayer & Pohlman: What Is Caesar's, What Is God's — Fundamental Public Policy For Churches

Lloyd Hitoshi Mayer (Notre Dame; Google Scholar) & Zachary Pohlman (J.D. 2021, Notre Dame), What Is Caesar's, What is God's: Fundamental Public Policy for Churches, 44 Harv. J.L. & Pub. Pol'y 145 (2021):

Bob Jones University v. United States is a highly debated Supreme Court decision, both regarding whether it was correct and what exactly it stands for, and a rarely applied one. Its recognition of a “fundamental public policy doctrine” that could cause an otherwise tax-exempt organization to lose its favorable federal tax status remains highly controversial, although the Court has shown no inclination to revisit the case, and Congress has shown no desire to change the underlying statutes to alter the case’s result. That lack of action may be in part because the IRS applies the decision in relatively rare and narrow circumstances.

The mention of the decision during oral argument in Obergefell v. Hodges raised the specter of more vigorous and broader application of the doctrine, however.

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The Top Five New Tax Papers

This week's list of the Top 5 Recent Tax Paper Downloads is the same as last week's list, with some reshuffling of the order within the Top 5:

1. [465 Downloads]  The Unacknowledged Realities of Extraterritorial Taxation, by Laura Snyder (Association of Americans Resident Overseas)
2. [265 Downloads]  Capital Taxation and Market Power, by Kimberly Clausing (UCLA; Google Scholar)
3. [257 Downloads]  Four Tax Questions For ChatGPT And Other Language Models, by Libin Zhang (Fried Frank, New York)
4. [243 Downloads]  The Inflation Reduction Act's Impact On Tax Compliance—And Fiscal Sustainability, by Natasha Sarin (Yale; Google Scholar; Former Counselor on Tax Policy, U.S. Treasury Department) & Mark Mazur (Former Assistant Secretary for Tax Policy, U.S. Treasury Department)
5. [230 Downloads]  The Mirage Of Mobile Capital, by Wei Cui (British Columbia; Google Scholar)

This Week's Ten Most Popular TaxProf Blog Posts

Legal Education:

1. Paul Caron (Dean, Pepperdine), Legal Education's Reaction To The Supreme Court's Affirmative Action Decisions
2. Wall Street Journal Op-Ed, I Paid For Free Speech At Arizona State With My Job
3. Rory Bahadur (Washburn), Law School Rankings and The Impossibility of Anti-Racism
4. Chronicle of Higher Education, Senior Tenured Law Prof Sues University Of Colorado Alleging Pay Discrimination And Retaliation
5. Derek Muller (Iowa), Academic Attrition And The U.S. News Law School Rankings
6. John Nay (Stanford, NYU), Sarah Lawsky (Northwestern), Jonathan Choi (Minnesota) et al., Large Language Models As Tax Attorneys: A Case Study In Legal Capabilities Emergence
7. KCBS, 122-Year Old Golden Gate Law School Will Keep Its Doors Open A Little Longer Despite Continued Financial Woes
8. Aliza Shatzman (Legal Accountability Project), The Clerkships Whisper Network: What It Is, Why It's Broken, And How To Fix It
9. New York Times, ChatGPT Lawyers Are Ordered To Pay $5,000 Fine, Consider Seeking Forgiveness
10. Paul Caron (Dean, Pepperdine), Michael McConnell (Stanford) & Marcus Cole (Dean, Notre Dame) Receive Religious Liberty Awards

Tax:

1. Bryan Camp (Texas Tech), Lesson From The Tax Court: How To Calculate Insolvency For The §108 Exclusion
2. John Brooks (Fordham) & David Gamage (Indiana-Maurer), Moore v. United States and the Original Meaning of Income
3. Bryan Camp (Texas Tech), Lesson From The Tax Court: The Administrative Record Rule In Whistleblower Cases
4. Vault, 2024 Law Firm Tax Rankings: Skadden Is #1 For 14th Year In A Row
5. Virginia Tax Review, Vol. 42, No. 1 (Summer 2022)
6. SSRN, Tax Professor Rankings
7. Michael Conklin (Angelo State) & Jordan Daniel (Angelo State), Taxes And Athletic Performance: Why NBA Players Perform Better In Low-Tax States
8. SSRN, The Top Five New Tax Papers
9. Tracey Roberts (Cumberland), Review Of Gift Tax Consequences of Luxury Hospitality, By Bridget Crawford (Pace), Victoria Haneman (Creighton) & Jonathan Blattmachr (Milbank)
10. Roundup, Tax Policy In The Biden Administration

Faith: 

1. New York Times Op-Ed (Tish Harrison Warren), You Can’t Protect Some Life and Not Others

Fordham Dean Diller: New U.S. News Law School Rankings Methodology Is 'Deeply Problematic'

National Law Journal Op-Ed:  Problem Not Solved: A Closer Look at the New US News Law School Ranking Formula, by Matthew Diller (Dean, Fordham):

My school benefited from the new U.S. News & World Report law school ranking formula [Fordham ranks #29 this year, up from #37 last year], and I still don’t like it.

After more than six months of intense scrutiny and debate, the rankings will hopefully recede into the background, seen as just another data point in the constellation of information and opinions about law schools. But before we move on, I wanted to offer a few observations about the new formula unveiled this spring and why going forward the rankings should continue to draw skepticism.

U.S. News has stressed that its new formula emphasizes employment-related outcomes to a much greater degree than had been the case. Indeed, the metrics around employment and bar passage now make up almost 60% of a school’s score. At first blush, this seems to make perfect sense—prospective students care deeply about both of these things and the ability of a school to successfully launch students’ legal careers is obviously critical. However, the way that U.S. News focuses on these two issues is deeply problematic. ...

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Policing Syndicated Conservation Easements: Conserving The Future

J.W. Glass (J.D. 2021, Florida), Note, Conserving the Future: Policing Syndicated Conservation Easements, 32 U. Fla. J.L. & Pub. Pol'y 133 (2021): 

IRS Commissioner Rettig recently captured the essential spirit of the controversy stating "[a]busive syndicated conservation easement transactions undermine the public's trust in private land conservation and defraud the government of revenue ... [p]utting an end to these abusive schemes is a high priority for the IRS." The IRS has shown a commitment to halting these abusive transactions by prosecuting fraud and levying heavy penalties on possible violators.

Yet in the words of famed conservationist Aldo Leopold, "conservation will ultimately boil down to rewarding the private landowner who conserves the public interest." 

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Stephen Miller Sends Letter To 200 Law School Deans: I'll Sue If You Consider Race In Student Admissions, Faculty Hiring, Or Law Review Membership

Following up on yesterday's post, Legal Education's Reaction To The Supreme Court's Affirmative Action Decisions:  Mediate, Stephen Miller Sends Threatening Letter to 200 Law Schools Telling Them He’ll Sue If They Consider Race in Applications: You Are Hereby Warned:

Former advisor to President Donald Trump, Stephen Miller, announced Friday on social media that he has sent a letter to deans of 200 law schools around the country threatening to sue them if they bypass the Supreme Court’s ruling on affirmative action. ...

Miller, who currently acts as the President of America First Legal, announced he would bring the law schools to court if they try to “violate, bypass, circumvent, or subvert” the ruling.

America First Legal, America First Legal Sends Letters to 200 Law Schools Demanding the End of All Racial Preferences in Law School Admissions, Faculty Hiring, and Law Reviews:

Today, following the Supreme Court’s decision in Students for Fair Admissions, Inc. v. President and Fellows of Harvard College, America First Legal (AFL) sent a demand letter to the deans of every law school in the United States, demanding that they cease discriminating based on race and sex in student admissions, faculty hiring, and law-review membership and article selection. ...

America First Legal’s letter demands that law schools immediately halt these discriminatory and unlawful practices. It further puts the deans of every law school on notice: if they do not stop, America First Legal will bring legal action against them.

America First Letter to John Manning (Dean, Harvard Law School) (June 30, 2023):

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Weekly SSRN Tax Article Review And Roundup: Roberts Reviews Gift Tax Consequences Of Luxury Hospitality By Crawford, Haneman & Blattmachr

This week, Tracey Roberts (Cumberland; Google Scholar) reviews a work by Bridget J. Crawford (Pace; Google Scholar), Victoria J. Haneman (Creighton; Google Scholar) & Jonathan G. Blattmachr (Milbank LLP), Gift Tax Consequences of Luxury Hospitality: An Introduction, 115 Tax Notes Fed. 1157 (May 15, 2023).

In Gift Tax Consequences of Luxury Hospitality: An Introduction, Bridget Crawford, Victoria Haneman, and Jonathan Blattmachr examine the possible gift tax consequences of luxury consumption transfers. They explore the scope and the purpose of the federal gift tax through variations on three different scenarios: (i) Mom rents a mansion for a month in an exclusive resort town for her family ($800,000 FMV),(ii) Dad lets son ride to his college reunion in Chicago via his private jet ($70,000 FMV), and (iii) Rich invites friends for an all-inclusive nine-day yacht cruise ($5 million FMV).

There are a few clear guidelines in applying the federal gift tax. Transfers of cash and property clearly fall within its ambit. For example, if Mom, Dad and Rich simply give the recipients cash to purchase the lodging, transportation, and travel experiences, the cash transfers are clearly subject to the gift tax. On the other hand, personal spending and acts of economic waste do not fall within its ambit. 

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Weekly Legal Education Roundup

• Rory Bahadur (Washburn), Law School Rankings and The Impossibility of Anti-Racism
• Paul Caron (Dean, Pepperdine), Legal Education's Reaction To The Supreme Court's Affirmative Action Decisions
• Paul Caron (Dean, Pepperdine), Michael McConnell (Stanford) & Marcus Cole (Dean, Notre Dame), Receive Religious Liberty Awards
• Chronicle of Higher Education, An Outspoken Law Professor Criticized His University and His Field. Now He’s Suing for Discrimination
• Dealbreaker, Compensation Watch ’23: Go To Law School, Young Man
• Journal Of Legal Education, New Issue
• KCBS, This Historic Law School Is In Debt, But Trustees Are Rallying to Keep It Open
• Derek Muller (Iowa), USNWR Should Considering Incorporating Academic Attrition Rates to Offset Perverse Incentives in New Methodology

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Tax Policy In The Biden Administration

• Bloomberg, Florida, Texas See Tax Revenue Grow While California, New York Post Declines
• Bloomberg, Global Tax Deal Can Help Declutter National Rules, OECD Says
• Bloomberg, Yellen Says Global Shipping Tax Push ‘Very Constructive’
• Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, Expanding Health Savings Accounts Would Boost Tax Shelters
• Jane Gravelle & Mark Keightley (Congressional Research Service), The Pillar 2 Global Minimum Tax: Implications for U.S. Tax Policy

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Legal Education's Reaction To The Supreme Court's Affirmative Action Decisions

• Seattle Law School, Supreme Court Affirmative Action Decisions — Rapid Response Webinar (today at 10 a.m. PT/1 p.m. ET) (registration) (speakers)
• AALS, Achieving Diversity without Affirmative Action Conference (July 10) (program) (speakers)

• Will Baude (Chicago), The Unsurprising Affirmative Action Decision in Students for Fair Admissions v. Harvard
• Stephen Carter (Yale), Supreme Court’s Affirmative Action Ruling Follows Half-Baked Logic
• Michael Dorf (Cornell), About that Loophole: Good Luck, Admissions Officers
• Michael Dorf (Cornell), Precedents Out of Context in the Harvard/UNC Affirmative Action Ruling
• Mark Graber (Maryland), "History" and History in Students for Fair Admissions
• William Jacobson (Cornell), Clarence Thomas Reading His Epic Takedown Of KBJ’s Affirmative Action Dissent Left Her “Visibly Angry”
• William Jacobson (Cornell), SCOTUS “Gave Universities a Narrow Opening, and Harvard Just Announced It’s Going to Drive an Affirmative Action Truck Right Through It”
• Brian Leiter (Chicago), The Supreme Court's Affirmative Action in Admissions Decision
• Michael Simkovic (USC), To Circumvent Supreme Court Affirmative Action Ban, Harvard Will Shift to Diversity Statements
• Ilya Somin (George Mason), Thoughts on the Supreme Court's Ruling in the Harvard and UNC Racial Preferences Cases
• Law.com, Legal Academia Disappointed—but Undeterred—by SCOTUS Affirmative Action Ruling (quoting Marc Miller (Arizona), Angela Onwuachi-Willig (Boston University), Aaron Taylor (Executive Director, AccessLex Institute), Anthony Varona (Dean, Seattle), Kevin Washburn (Dean, Iowa))
• Reuters, Post-Affirmative Action, These Law Schools May Provide Path For Others (quoting Erwin Chemerinsky (Dean, UC-Berkeley))
• Reuters, U.S. Supreme Court’s Affirmative Action Ruling a ‘Headwind’ for Lawyer Diversity, Experts Say (quoting Angela Onwuachi-Willig (Boston University), Aaron Taylor (Executive Director, AccessLex Institute), Kellye Testy (President, LSAC), Anthony Varona (Dean, Seattle))

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Lucas: Shaping Preferences With Pigouvian Taxes

Gary Lucas, Jr. (Texas A&M; Google Scholar), Shaping Preferences with Pigouvian Taxes:

A Pigouvian tax is a tax that is imposed to correct an externality, which arises when a person engages in behavior that harms others without their consent. Pigouvian taxes are popular among academics—with prominent economists and legal scholars arguing for their imposition on myriad goods and activities that harm third parties, like carbon emissions and alcohol. Policymakers have recently been receptive to at least some of these arguments as evidenced by taxes imposed on or proposed for a variety of externality-generating goods, including guns, plastic bags, and sugary drinks.

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The Power Of Connection And Wellness: Building A Foundation For A Successful Law Career

Reid D. Murtaugh (Murtaugh Law), The Power of Connection and Wellness: Building A Foundation for a Successful Law Career, 48 Ohio N.U. L. Rev. 579 (2022)

When I graduated from law school, I knew nothing about wellness. At that time, it was just not talked about. I was in the dark for a long time, and I kept my diagnosis private for the first six years of my career.

My mental health struggles started well before law school when I was 17 years old. For the most part, I have been able to manage my bipolar II condition without it affecting my ability to study or work. I am going to share a few stories of when the stress of practicing law became an obstacle and affected me at work.

The first time I remember my mental health symptoms surfacing at work during my law career was in my third year of practice. I was twenty seven (27) years old and working in the prosecutor’s office. I had just been moved from traffic court to the major felony division. I was in court during a petition to revoke probation hearing and all of the sudden I felt panicky. I felt my jaws clench, a gripping sensation in my throat, tightness in my chest, and weakness in my lower body. These feelings did not have any real effect. Nobody in the courtroom knew what I was feeling. But it felt so intense that it felt like people knew. My thoughts turned negative and irrational. After the hearing concluded, it was time for lunch. I walked out of the courthouse. I remember standing on the sidewalk and looking back at the courthouse, and my brain was rapid firing repetitive thoughts such as, “I don’t think I am cut out to be a lawyer.”

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Mulvaney: Beneath The Property Taxes Financing Education

Timothy M. Mulvaney (Texas A&M; Google Scholar), Beneath the Property Taxes Financing Education, 123 Colum L. Rev. 1325 (2023): 

Many states turn in sizable part to local property taxes to finance public education. Political and academic discourse on the extent to which these taxes should serve in this role largely centers on second-order issues, such as the vices and virtues of local control, the availability of mechanisms to redistribute property tax revenues across school districts, and the overall stability of those revenues. This Essay contends that such discourse would benefit from directing greater attention to the justice of the government’s threshold choices about property law and policy that impact the property values against which property taxes are levied.

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Ability Diversity In The First-Year Law School Classroom

Ryan H. Nelson (South Texas; Google Scholar) & Michael Ashley Stein (Harvard), Ability Diversity in the First-Year Law School Classroom, 71 J. Legal Educ. 202 (2021) (reviewing Integrating Doctrine and Diversity: Inclusion and Equity in the Law School Classroom (Nicole P. Dyszlewski (Roger Williams), Raquel J. Gabriel (CUNY), Suzanne Harrington-Steppen (Roger Williams), Anna Russell & Genevieve B. Tung (Penn) (eds. 2021)):

Recognizing the urgent need for a renewed focus on equity and inclusion in our law school classrooms, co-editors Nicole P. Dyszlewski, Raquel J. Gabriel, Suzanne Harrington-Steppen, Anna Russell, and Genevieve B. Tung’s Integrating Doctrine and Diversity: Inclusion and Equity in the Law School Classroom offers a compendium of advice for law schools and law teachers about how to integrate equity and inclusion into first-year classrooms. Integrating Doctrine and Diversity is not only welcome, but essential, for law school administrators and anyone who teaches 1Ls.It lays out concrete, equitable initiatives that law schools and law teachers can adopt to improve the fairness of processes that are neutral on their face but tend to silence students from marginalized communities. It also offers real, easily accessible examples of how law teachers can increase inclusion in their 1L classrooms.

Conclusion
Integrating Doctrine and Diversity is one of those books that one should pass around to law school administrators and all law professors and instructors teaching 1L courses, tenured and untenured alike, to help them brainstorm innovative ways to make their classrooms more inclusive. In so doing, readers will undoubtedly improve students’ learning experiences, especially students from oft-marginalized communities.

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Revisiting The Tax Treatment Of Alimony

Tessa Davis (South Carolina), Amy Soled (Rutgers) & Jay A. Soled (Rutgers; Google Scholar), Revisiting the Tax Treatment of Alimony, 71 U. Kan. L. Rev. 379 (2023) (reviewed by Michelle Layser (San Diego) here): 

For over half a century, payers could deduct alimony payments while, conversely, recipients were required to include them in their income. The seeming symmetry of each dollar deducted being paired with a dollar included appears neatly balanced and consistent with the general tax principle of taxing accretions to wealth. Yet the superficiality of this coherence belied the more complex reality of the tax treatment of alimony as an area that confused taxpayers while simultaneously frustrating core elements of tax policy.

As part of the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act of 2017, Congress upended the tax treatment of alimony, making it neither deductible for the payer nor includable by the recipient. The legislative history regarding the need for this reform is virtually nonexistent. To fill this important gap, this article offers rationales for this legislative initiative.

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Stanford Law School Promised Free Speech Training. It Delivered A Campus Joke.

Following up on my previous posts on the Stanford free speech controversy (links below):  Aaron Sibarium (Washington Free Beacon), Stanford Law School Promised Free Speech Training. It Delivered a Campus Joke.:

After hundreds of students at Stanford Law School shouted down a sitting federal judge in March, school administrators went into damage-control mode. Among the measures they promised to promote a more open academic climate was a mandatory half-day training session on "freedom of speech and the norms of the legal profession."

Many hailed the move as a sign that Stanford was turning over a new leaf and lavished praise on Jenny Martinez, the law school's dean, for her perceived defiance of the campus mob.

But the promised training wasn't much of a crash course in free speech. Instead, it was an online program that required barely a minute's effort, according to five people who completed the training as well as screenshots and recordings reviewed by the Washington Free Beacon. Students were given six weeks to watch five prerecorded videos, most about an hour long, then asked to sign a form attesting that they had done so.

The videos could be played on mute, and the form—which could be accessed without opening the training—did not ask any questions about their content, letting students tune out the modules or skip them entirely.

"I watched none of the videos," one student said. "I never even opened the links. On the day the training was due, I went to the attestation link provided by the university, checked a box confirming I watched the videos, and that was the end of the matter. Whole process took 10 seconds."

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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 June 1, 2023) 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)	221,713	1	Jonathan Choi (Minnesota)	14,800
2	Daniel Hemel (NYU)	130,244	2	Reuven Avi-Yonah (Michigan)	12,005
3	Dan Shaviro (NYU)	126,790	3	Kristin Hickman (Minnesota)	11,491
4	Lily Batchelder (NYU)	126,561	4	Amy Monahan (Minnesota)	10,523
5	David Gamage (Indiana-Maurer)	124,476	5	Daniel Hemel (NYU)	4,517
6	Darien Shanske (UC-Davis)	117,602	6	Bridget Crawford (Pace)	4,278
7	David Kamin (NYU)	113,744	7	Kyle Rozema (Washington University)	3,686
8	Cliff Fleming (BYU)	108,099	8	Ruth Mason (Virginia)	3,560
9	Manoj Viswanathan (UC-San Francisco)	104,584	9	Louis Kaplow (Harvard)	3,450
10	Ari Glogower (Northwestern)	103,892	10	Margaret Ryznar (Indiana-McKinney)	3,191
11	Rebecca Kysar (Fordham)	103,664	11	D. Dharmapala (Chicago)	3,134
12	D. Dharmapala (Chicago)	50,617	12	Robert Sitkoff (Harvard)	3,126
13	Michael Simkovic (USC)	47,832	13	Steve Black (Texas Tech)	3,098
14	Paul Caron (Pepperdine)	41,055	14	Darien Shanske (UC-Davis)	2,826
15	Louis Kaplow (Harvard)	40,475	15	Richard Ainsworth (Boston University)	2,778
16	Richard Ainsworth (Boston University)	37,956	16	David Gamage (Indiana-Maurer)	2,692
17	Bridget Crawford (Pace)	36,391	17	Kim Clausing (UCLA)	2,671
18	Robert Sitkoff (Harvard)	32,340	18	Brad Borden (Brooklyn)	2,533
19	Brad Borden (Brooklyn)	30,667	19	Dan Shaviro (NYU)	2,145
20	Ruth Mason (Virginia)	29,998	20	Lily Batchelder (NYU)	2,059
21	Vic Fleischer (UC-Irvine)	29,867	21	Zachary Liscow (Yale)	2,014
22	Ed Kleinbard (USC)	29,522	22	Young Ran (Christine) Kim (Cardozo)	1,997
23	Jim Hines (Michigan)	28,082	23	Richard Kaplan (Illinois)	1,992
24	Richard Kaplan (Illinois)	27,244	24	Brian Galle (Georgetown)	1,973
25	Kim Clausing (UCLA)	26,561	25	Victoria Haneman (Creighton)	1,784

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Law Schools Attended By Current Federal Judges

There was an interesting thread recently on the Reddit law school admissions site on the law schools attended by current U.S. Circuit Court Judges and District Court Judges:

Law Schools Attended by Current Federal Judges
Rank	Law School (US News Rank)	Total Judges	Circuit Judges	District Judges
1	Harvard (5)	127	45	82
2	Yale (1)	82	36	46
3	Georgetown (15)	41	10	31
4	Texas (16)	38	4	34
4	Virginia (8)	38	11	27
6	Michigan (10)	33	15	18
7	Chicago (3)	29	14	15
7	UC-Berkeley (10)	29	5	24
9	Columbia (8)	28	6	22
10	NYU (5)	25	6	19
10	Stanford (1)	25	10	15
12	Florida (22)	22	3	19
13	Georgia (20)	20	3	17
14	Louisiana State (99)	19	3	16
15	Notre Dame (27)	18	2	16
15	Tulane (71)	18	8	10
17	Penn (4)	17	3	14
17	UCLA (14)	17	5	12
17	Vanderbilt (16)	17	2	15
20	Oklahoma (51)	16	0	16
20	South Carolina (60)	16	5	11
20	West Virginia (111)	16	2	14
23	Alabama (35)	15	1	14
23	Cornell (13)	15	4	11
23	Northwestern (10)	15	5	10
26	Emory (35)	14	3	11
26	George Washington (35)	14	3	11
26	Temple (54)	14	1	13
29	Duke (5)	13	4	9
30	American (89)	12	1	11
30	Arkansas-Fayetteville (105)	12	3	9
30	University of Arizona (54)	12	2	10
33	Arizona State (32)	11	3	8
33	Fordham (29)	11	3	8
33	Howard (125)	11	0	11
33	Kansas (40)	11	3	8
33	Mississippi (111)	11	2	9
33	Ohio State (22)	11	1	10
33	Rutgers (109)	11	1	10
40	North Carolina (22)	10	2	8
40	Seton Hall (56)	10	2	8
40	University of Washington (49)	10	0	10
43	Minnesota (16)	9	1	8
43	SMU (45)	9	0	9
43	Utah (32)	9	2	7
43	Washington University (20)	9	3	6
47	Denver (80)	8	1	7
47	Kentucky (60)	8	0	8
47	Miami (71)	8	2	6
47	Missouri-Kansas City (135)	8	0	8
47	New Mexico (96)	8	2	6
47	Puerto Rico (Tier 2)	8	0	8
47	St. Louis (89)	8	0	8
47	Syracuse (122)	8	2	6
55	Baylor (49)	7	1	6
55	Boston College (29)	7	1	6
55	BYU (22)	7	3	4
55	Penn State-Dickinson (89)	7	1	6
55	UC-San Francisco (60)	7	1	6
55	Wake Forest (22)	7	0	7
55	Wyoming (111)	7	4	3
62	Boston University (27)	6	2	4
62	Indiana (Maurer) (45)	6	1	5
62	Iowa (35)	6	1	5
62	Samford (131)	6	1	5
62	Villanova (43)	6	1	5
62	Wayne State (56)	6	0	6
62	William & Mary (45)	6	1	5
62	Wisconsin (40)	6	0	6
70	Akron (150)	5	2	3
70	Brooklyn (111)	5	0	5
70	Colorado (56)	5	1	4
70	Connecticut (71)	5	0	5
70	Duquesne (89)	5	0	5
70	Florida State (56)	5	0	5
70	Illinois (43)	5	0	5
70	Loyola-Chicago (84)	5	0	5
70	Loyola-New Orleans (111)	5	2	3
70	Maryland (51)	5	0	5
70	Missouri (Columbia) (71)	5	0	5
70	Montana (96)	5	0	5
70	North Dakota (Tier 2)	5	1	4
70	Pacific (141)	5	2	3
70	Pittsburgh (89)	5	0	5
70	St. John's (60)	5	0	5
70	St. Mary's (153)	5	0	5
70	SUNY-Buffalo (125)	5	1	4
88	Cal-Western (175)	4	0	4
88	Case Western (80)	4	0	4
88	Cincinnati (84)	4	0	4
88	Cleveland State (111)	4	0	4
88	Creighton (155)	4	0	4
88	DePaul (135)	4	1	3
88	Detroit Mercy (141)	4	1	3
88	George Mason (32)	4	1	3
88	Houston (60)	4	0	4
88	Idaho (141)	4	1	3
88	Indiana (McKinney) (99)	4	1	3
88	Marquette (71)	4	2	2
88	Michigan State (111)	4	1	3
88	Northeastern (71)	4	0	4
88	Richmond (60)	4	0	4
88	Stetson (84)	4	0	4
88	Suffolk (133)	4	1	3
88	Tennessee (51)	4	0	4
88	Valparaiso (N/A)	4	0	4
107	Capital (175)	3	0	3
107	Illinois-Chicago (159)	3	0	3
107	Lewis & Clark (84)	3	0	3
107	Memphis (125)	3	1	2
107	Mercer (99)	3	0	3
107	Mitchell | Hamline (167)	3	0	3
107	Nebraska (89)	3	2	1
107	New York Law School (125)	3	0	3
107	Pepperdine Caruso (45)	3	0	3
107	San Diego (78)	3	0	3
107	South Dakota (122)	3	1	2
107	South Texas (162)	3	0	3
107	Texas Southern (Tier 2)	3	0	3
107	Toledo (141)	3	0	3
107	Washburn (111)	3	1	2
107	Washington & Lee (40)	3	0	3
123	Albany (105)	2	0	2
123	Catholic (122)	2	0	2
123	Golden Gate (Tier 2)	2	1	1
123	Gonzaga (99)	2	0	2
123	Louisville (99)	2	0	2
123	Loyola-L.A. (60)	2	0	2
123	Maine (146)	2	0	2
123	Mississippi College (165)	2	0	2
123	North Carolina Central (175)	2	0	2
123	Northern Kentucky (149)	2	0	2
123	Oregon (78)	2	0	2
123	Pace (131)	2	0	2
123	Seattle (111)	2	0	2
123	Southern (Tier 2)	2	0	2
123	Southern Illinois (174)	2	0	2
123	Tulsa (111)	2	0	2
123	UC-Davis (60)	2	0	2
123	Willamette (155)	2	0	2
141	California Pacific (N/A)	1	0	1
141	Chicago-Kent (99)	1	1	0
141	Dayton (111)	1	0	1
141	District of Columbia (Tier 2)	1	0	1
141	Drake (88)	1	0	1
141	Inter-American (PR) (Tier 2)	1	0	1
141	Northern Illinois (162)	1	0	1
141	Nova (171)	1	0	1
141	Ohio Northern (146)	1	0	1
141	Pontifical Catholic (PR) (Tier 2)	1	0	1
141	San Francisco (165)	1	0	1
141	Santa Clara (158)	1	0	1
141	Southwestern (141)	1	0	1
141	Texas Tech (71)	1	0	1
141	USC (16)	1	1	0
141	Western New England (Tier 2)	1	0	1
141	Western State (Tier 2)	1	0	1

Virginia Tax Review Publishes New Issue

The Virginia Tax Review has published Vol. 42, No. 1 (Summer 2022): 

• Rodney P. Mock (Cal Poly), David Chamberlain (Cal Poly) & Kathryn Kisska Schulze (Clemson; Google Scholar), The Zero Value Tax Fantasy, 42 Va. Tax Rev. 1 (2022)
• David R. Agrawal (Kentucky; Google Scholar) & Kirk Stark (UCLA), Will the Remote Work Revolution Undermine Progressive State Income Taxes?, 42 Va. Tax Rev. 47 (2022)

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Journal Of Legal Education Publishes New Issue

The Journal of Legal Education has published Vol. 71, No. 1 (Fall 2021):

From the Editors

• Robert Dinerstein (American), Jeremy Paul (Northeastern; Google Scholar), Sonia Rolland (Northeastern) & Ezra Rosser (American; Google Scholar), From the Editors, 71 J. Legal Educ. 1 (2021)

Articles 

• Melissa Bezanson Shultz (Mitchell|Hamline), Professor, Please Help Me Pass the Bar Exam: #NextGenBar2026, 71 J. Legal Educ. 141 (2021)

From the Lectern

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Taxes And Athletic Performance: Why NBA Players Perform Better In Low-Tax States

Michael Conklin (Angelo State) & Jordan Daniel (Angelo State), Taxes and Athletic Performance: Why NBA Players Perform Better in Low-Tax States:

Game locations can make a significant difference on a player’s after-tax earnings. And under the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act of 2017, this disparity has increased. Extensive research exists regarding state tax rates and professional athletes. These studies conclusively show that athletes consider state tax rates when considering which team to join; that teams in high-tax states are therefore at a disadvantage in acquiring talent; and that because of this disadvantage, these high-tax teams underperform when compared to teams in low- and no-tax states. However, no study has been conducted to measure how the various different state tax rates experienced by professional athletes in their away games affect athletic performance. This first-of-its kind study fills this gap in the research by finding that NBA players averaged significantly higher free-throw percentages in away games at no-tax states compared to high-tax states.

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Can ChatGPT Write A Law Review Article?

Roman M. Yankovskiy (National Research University Higher School of Economics, Moscow), Is Artificial Intelligence Capable of Writing a Law Journal Article?:

In this article, we explore the potential of artificial intelligence (AI), in particular, ChatGPT based on GPT 4.0 model, to create articles in the field of legal studies. We analyze the pros and cons of employing AI in jurisprudence, specifically focusing on its capacity to adapt to intricate legal terminology, evolving legislation, and nuanced argumentation. The primary emphasis is placed on potential inaccuracies that may emerge in AI-generated text, as well as the underlying causes and subsequent ramifications.

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Colinvaux: The Hidden Subsidy For Perpetual Donor Limits On Gifts

Roger Colinvaux (Catholic University), Strings Are Attached: Shining a Spotlight on the Hidden Subsidy for Perpetual Donor Limits on Gifts, 57 Loy. L.A. L. Rev. __ (2024):

Charitable gifts often come with strings attached. Donors limit their gifts in many ways, typically by restricting an asset’s use or purpose, the timing of spending (as in an endowment), and by securing naming rights. Donors also limit their gifts by giving to a charitable intermediary such as a donor-advised fund or private foundation, thereby retaining effective control over the distribution or investment of the donated asset. Donor limits are perpetual in nature. The Article assesses the law of donor limits. The Article first explains that non-tax legal rules strongly favor donor limits. They are easy for donors to impose and extremely hard for charities to eliminate.

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Muller: Academic Attrition And The U.S. News Law School Rankings

Derek Muller (Iowa; Google Scholar), USNWR Should Considering Incorporating Academic Attrition Rates to Offset Perverse Incentives in New Methodology:

Last year, 41 schools have 0 students who faced academic attrition. Another 70 schools had academic attrition at less than 1% of the law school’s overall total JD enrollment. ...

USNWR has now done a few things that make academic attrition much more attractive to law schools.

First, it has devalued admissions statistics. ...

Second, it has dramatically increased the value of outputs, including the bar exam and employment outcomes. Again, a sensible result. But if schools can improve their outputs by graduating fewer students ... the temptation to dismiss students grows. That is, if the most at-risk students are dismissed, the students who have the lowest likelihood of passing the bar exam and the most challenging time securing employment are out of the schools “outputs” cohort. ...

I would submit that USNWR should consider incorporating academic attrition data into its law school rankings. As it is, its college rankings consider six-year graduation rates and first-year retention rates. (Indeed, it also has a predicted graduation rate, which it could likewise construct here.) While transfers out usually reflect the best law students in attrition, and “other” attrition can likely be attributed to personal or other idiosyncratic circumstances, academic attrition reflects the school’s decision to dismiss some students rather than help them navigate the rest of the law program. Indeed, from a consumer information perspective, this is important information for a prospective law student—if I enter the program, what are the odds that I’ll continue in the program?

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2024 Vault Law Firm Tax Rankings: Skadden Is #1 For 14th Year In A Row

Vault has released its annual ranking of the Top 100 Law Firms, based on prestige as voted on by associates (methodology here). The Top Tax Practices are:

Rank	Firm	Home City	% Vote
1	Skadden	New York	37.95%
2	Kirkland & Ellis	Chicago	23.12%
3	Davis Polk	New York	19.96%
4	Cravath	New York	19.37%
5	Latham & Watkins	New York	18.97%
6	Baker McKenzie	Chicago	17.98%
7	Wachtell	New York	17.59%
8	McDermott, Will & Emery	Chicago	11.46%
9	Sullivan & Cromwell	New York	10.28%
10	Simpson Thacher	New York	9.49%
11	Weil	New York	9.09%
12	Cleary Gottlieb	New York	8.70%
13	Caplin & Drysdale	D.C.	6.32%
13	Paul Weiss	New York	6.32%
15	Morgan Lewis	Philadelphia	4.94%
15	Ropes & Gray	Boston	4.94%
15	Sidley Austin	Chicago	4.94%
18	Eversheds Sutherland	D.C.	4.74%
19	Miller & Chevalier	D.C.	4.35%
20	Mayer Brown	Chicago	3.95%

For the fourteenth year in a row, Skadden is #1. The city rankings are:

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Bahadur: Law School Rankings and The Impossibility of Anti-Racism

Rory D. Bahadur (Washburn), Law School Rankings and The Impossibility of Anti-Racism, 53 St. Mary's L.J. 994 (2022): 

This Article uses the U.S. News law school rankings to illustrate how powerful, invisible, and stubborn systemic racism is. This Article does not level allegations of intentionally blameworthy conduct at U.S. News, or any person or entity. More broadly, this Article does not address conscious and deliberate racism, or the examples of this type of racism with which America’s history is replete. Nor is this Article attempting to undervalue the significant impact of deliberately racist actions in American history on the economic disparity between white people and people of color.

Instead, I make an untrue assumption: All Americans of every phenotype are anti-racist. This assumption is akin to those made in the context of a summary judgment motion. In other words, a summary judgment movant often assumes the other side’s facts are true, even when they are not, solely to eliminate factual disputes for the purpose of the motion. The movant then contends even if the facts are as the opponent states they are, the movant’s position is still valid, and the movant’s thesis of the litigation prevails.

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Large Language Models As Tax Attorneys: A Case Study In Legal Capabilities Emergence

John Nay (Stanford, NYU; Google Scholar), David Karamardian (M.S. 2023, Stanford), Sarah B. Lawsky (Northwestern; Google Scholar), Wenting Tao (Independent), Meghana Bhat (Independent), Raghav Jain (Independent), Aaron Travis Lee (Independent), Jonathan H. Choi (Minnesota; Google Scholar) & Jungo Kasai (Ph.D. Candidate 2023, Washington), Large Language Models as Tax Attorneys: A Case Study in Legal Capabilities Emergence:

Better understanding of Large Language Models’ (LLMs) legal analysis abilities can contribute to improving the efficiency of legal services, governing artificial intelligence, and leveraging LLMs to identify inconsistencies in law. This paper explores LLM capabilities in applying tax law. We choose this area of law because it has a structure that allows us to set up automated validation pipelines across thousands of examples, requires logical reasoning and maths skills, and enables us to test LLM capabilities in a manner relevant to real-world economic lives of citizens and companies. Our experiments demonstrate emerging legal understanding capabilities, with improved performance in each subsequent OpenAI model release.

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Senior Tenured Law Prof Sues University Of Colorado Alleging Pay Discrimination And Retaliation

Chronicle of Higher Education, An Outspoken Professor Criticized His University and His Field. Now He’s Suing for Discrimination.:

A longtime law professor at the University of Colorado at Boulder who is also a prolific critic of legal education is suing the institution, saying it is discriminating against him because he is Latino.

Paul F. Campos alleges that Boulder’s law school has failed to offer an explanation or recourse for a poor evaluation he received last year, and his complaint in the U.S. District Court for the District of Colorado stakes that treatment on his ethnicity. Campos has also been an outspoken critic of the legal-education industry and specifically of what he characterized in his lawsuit as the Boulder law school’s “reckless financial behavior,” which he says has made him “quite unpopular” with colleagues.

To Campos, who has written for The Chronicle, the retaliation he claims to have faced in recent years reflects a decade spent criticizing legal education from the inside, including on a blog he wrote from 2011 to 2015 called Inside the Law School Scam, and pointing out in faculty meetings what he saw as financial mismanagement at his home institution.

That Campos is Latino only expands the “target on my back,” he told The Chronicle. “If you are a whistleblower, naturally it makes you unpopular in a variety of ways. But if you’re nonwhite and also a whistleblower, that’s kind of two strikes against you,” Campos said. “I think my own experience indicates the extent to which my white colleagues are willing to put up with criticism about the basic finances of the institution from a nonwhite colleague. And the answer is they’re pretty much not.”

But others say Campos’s history of disparaging his industry and his own institution has damaged his reputation and, in turn, made his lawsuit difficult to take seriously. ...

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Brooks & Gamage: Moore v. United States And The Original Meaning Of Income

Wall Street Journal Editorial, A Wealth-Tax Watershed for the Supreme Court:

The Supreme Court is set to finish another consequential term this week, and on Monday the Justices teed up for next term what could be a landmark tax case. In agreeing to hear Moore v. U.S., the Court will consider the legality of a form of wealth tax that is the long-time dream of the political left.

John R. Brooks (Fordham; Google Scholar) & David Gamage (Indiana-Maurer; Google Scholar), Moore v. United States and the Original Meaning of Income:

In the upcoming Supreme Court case of Moore v. United States the taxpayers are challenging whether unrepatriated earnings of a foreign corporation can be “income” of a shareholder under the Sixteenth Amendment. The case therefore raises a question that the Court has rarely had to address in the last 100 years—what is the meaning of "income" under the Sixteenth Amendment? And furthermore, is "realization" required before the gain from property ownership can be treated as income?

Central to answering those question is another question: What is the original meaning of "income" at the time of the Sixteenth Amendment’s ratification? The taxpayers in Moore (and the Ninth Circuit judges who dissented from the denial of rehearing en banc) argue that some concept of realization is necessarily a part of the original meaning of income—i.e., that there must be some act of separation or conversion of property into cash or other property in order for there to be “income.”

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The Clerkships Whisper Network: What It Is, Why It's Broken, And How To Fix It

Aliza Shatzman (Legal Accountability Project), The Clerkships Whisper Network: What It Is, Why It's Broken, And How To Fix It, 123 Colum. L. Rev. Forum 110 (2023):

Judicial clerkships are typically described in the rosiest of terms—as fostering lifelong mentor-mentee relationships between judges and clerks and conferring only professional benefits. The downsides of clerking are rarely discussed. The clerkship application process is opaque. Little information exists to help law students identify positive work environments and avoid judges who mistreat their clerks. The secretive, fear-infused method of information-sharing is known as the clerkships “whisper network.” Information about judges who mistreat their clerks is often not shared by those who possess it, including law school professors, deans, clerkship directors, and former clerks, with those who need it— students and recent alumni.

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Oxford Centre For Business Taxation Hosts 17th Annual Academic Symposium

The three-day Oxford University Centre for Business Taxation's 17th Annual Academic Symposium kicksoff today: 

Monday, June 26

Session 1: 

Chair: Michael Devereux (Oxford; Google Scholar)

Juan Carlos Suarez-Serrato (Stanford; Google Scholar), Does Tax Planning by US Multinationals Impact their Economic Activity? (with Rosanne Altshuler (Rutgers; Google Scholar) & Lysle Boller (Duke))
Discussant: Naomi Feldman (Hebrew University; Google Scholar) 

Annette Alstadsæter (Norwegian; Google Scholar), Pennies from Haven: Wages and Profit Shifting (with Julie Brun Bjørkheim (Norwegian; Google Scholar), Ronald Davies (University College Dublin) & Johannes Scheuerer (University College Dublin))
Discussant: Sarah Clifford (Oxford; Google Scholar)

Session 2: 

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Legal Ed News Roundup

• ABA Journal, Dean Settles Case With Texas Law School And Returns As Tenured Professor
• ABA Journal, Future 1L Eligible For NBA Draft, Thanks To Close Reading Of Contract
• ABA Journal, Law Students Older Than 30 More Likely To Promote Online Law School Courses, New Report Finds
• ABA 7, Former Chapman Law School Dean Faces Possible Disbarment Over Plot to Keep Trump in Power
• Daily Progress, New UVa Law School Fellowship Honors Labor, Delivery Nurse
• Daily Report, Balch & Bingham Pledges $500K to Alabama Law
• Harvard Crimson, Harvard Law School Clinic Calls for New Bird Safety Measures in University Building Standards
• Heritage Foundation, University of Pennsylvania Law School—Exposed

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Avi-Yonah & Kim: The Promise And Pitfalls Of The Global Minimum Tax

Reuven S. Avi-Yonah (Michigan; Google Scholar) & Young Ran (Christine) Kim (Cardozo; Google Scholar), Tax Harmony: The Promise and Pitfalls of the Global Minimum Tax, 43 Mich. J. Int'l L. 505 (2022):

The rise of globalization has become a double-edged sword for countries seeking to implement a beneficial tax policy. On one hand, there are increased opportunities for attracting foreign capital and the benefits that increased jobs and tax revenue brings to a society. However, there is also much more tax competition among countries to attract foreign capital and investment. As tax competition has grown, effective corporate tax rates have continued to be cut, creating a “race-to-the-bottom” issue.

In 2021, 137 countries forming the OECD/G20 Inclusive Framework on BEPS passed a major milestone in reforming international tax by successfully introducing the framework of a global minimum corporate tax, known as Pillar Two. It aims to set a floor for corporate tax rates with various corrective measures so that multinational enterprises’ income will be taxed once in either source country or residence country at a substantive tax rate.

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Compensation Watch ’23: Go To Law School, Not Business School, Young Man

Dealbreaker, Compensation Watch ’23: Go To Law School, Young Man:

[According to the Wall Street Journal,] the best way into the most lucrative line of work on Wall Street [is to] ... shred those Wharton and HBS applications and cancel your GMAT registration. But you’re probably gonna want to sign up for the LSAT just as soon as you’re done.

Wall Street Journal, On Wall Street, Lawyers Make More Than Bankers Now:

Superstar attorneys can rake in more than $15 million a year, while banker pay has hardly budged.

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Lesson From The Tax Court: How To Calculate Insolvency For The §108 Exclusion

While not as certain as death and taxes, small businesses failures are highly probable events.  This webpage from the Bureau of Labor Statistics goes into the gnarly. 

When a small business fails, that often means it cannot repay loans.  A lender will often write off the loan as a bad debt, discharging the borrower from the obligation to repay.  That discharge is taxable income to the borrower, unless they qualify for an exclusion.  Today’s lesson involves the insolvency exclusion in §108(a).  To qualify for that, one has to be (duh) insolvent!  Insolvency is tested at the time of the discharge.  Section 108(d)(3) defines insolvency as "the excess of liabilities over the fair market value of assets."  But nothing in the statutes or regulations defines the term "liabilities."

Katrina E. White v. Commissioner, T.C. Memo. 2023-77 (June 21, 2023) (Judge Paris), teaches a lesson about what types of obligations count as liabilities in determining insolvency for §108(a) purposes.  We learn that a liability which is legally enforceable, and due and owing at the time of the discharge, counts even if the lender takes no action to actually collect or enforce the debt.  Details below the fold.

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122-Year Old Golden Gate Law School Will Keep Its Doors Open A Little Longer Despite Continued Financial Woes

Following up on Wednesday's post, Golden Gate University Law School Faces Bankruptcy, Closure:  KCBS, This Historic Law School Is In Debt, But Trustees Are Rallying to Keep It Open:

The 122-year old Golden Gate University School of Law will keep its doors open a little longer despite continued financial woes. Trustees are hoping to find a plan to pay down tens of millions of dollars in debt.

The board of trustees had the option to close the law school outright or relinquish its ABA accreditation status. It chose not to take action, at least for now. The law school plays a unique role — a place for late career professionals to enter the legal world. Mohammed Jamal is a current student and president of the student bar association. He says a closure would be a blow to part-time students. ...

In a statement, Golden Gate University President David Fike said all options are on the table, including a plan by faculty that would reduce staff and work to improve bar passage rates. ...

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TaxProf Blog Weekend Roundup

Saturday:

• This Week's Ten Most Popular TaxProf Blog Posts
• NY Times: ChatGPT Lawyers Are Ordered To Pay $5,000 Fine, Consider Seeking Forgiveness
• Dan Shaviro To Receive 2023 Holland Medal
• WSJ Op-Ed: I Paid For Free Speech At Arizona State With My Job

Sunday:

• NY Times Op-Ed: ‘You Can’t Protect Some Life And Not Others'
• NY Times Op-Ed: The Importance Of Hope In The Pro-Life Movement
• Michael McConnell And Marcus Cole Receive Religious Liberty Awards
• The Lord’s Prayer On Jeopardy!
• The Top Five New Tax Papers

NY Times Op-Ed: ‘You Can’t Protect Some Life And Not Others'

New York Times Op-Ed: ‘You Can’t Protect Some Life and Not Others,’ by Tish Harrison Warren (Priest, Anglican Church; Author, Prayer in the Night: For Those Who Work or Watch or Weep (2021) (Christianity Today's 2022 Book of the Year)):

With over a year to go until the presidential election, I am already dreading what this next political season will feel like — the polarity, the vitriol, the exhaustion, the online fighting, the misinformation, the possibility of another Trump nomination. I already know that I won’t feel represented by the platforms of either party. I know I’ll feel politically estranged and frustrated.

People like me, who hold to what the Roman Catholic cardinal Joseph Bernardin called a “consistent ethic of life” and what the Catholic activist Eileen Egan referred to as “the seamless garment” of life don’t have a clear political home. A “whole life” ethic entails a commitment to life “from womb to tomb,” as Bernardin said, and it also champions policies that aid those who are vulnerable or economically disadvantaged. Bernardin, who died in 1996, argued that a consistent ethic demands equal advocacy for the “right to life of the weakest among us” and “the quality of life of the powerless among us.” Because of this, it combines issues that we often pry apart in American politics.

The whole life movement, for instance, rejects the notion that a party can embrace family values while leaving asylum-seeking children on our Southern border in grave danger. Or that one can extend compassion to those children, while withholding it from the unwanted child in the womb. A whole life ethic is often antiwar, anti-abortion, anti-death penalty, anti-euthanasia and pro-gun control. It sees a thread connecting issues that the major party platforms often silo.

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NY Times Op-Ed: The Importance Of Hope In The Pro-Life Movement

New York Times Op-Ed:  The Importance of Hope in the Pro-Life Movement, by David French (Author, Divided We Fall: America’s Secession Threat and How to Restore Our Nation (2020)):

No president saw sharper decreases in the abortion rate and ratio from the first to the last year of his presidency than Barack Obama. In 2016, at the end of a presidency dominated by pro-choice policies and judicial nominations, there were a total of 874,080 abortions — 338,270 fewer than there were in 2008, the last year of the George W. Bush presidency. That’s a remarkable decline of 28 percent. The rate and ratio of abortions at the end of Obama’s second term were actually lower than it was in 1973.

Yet that long trajectory toward lower abortion rates and ratios changed during Donald Trump’s single term. In spite of supposedly being the most pro-life president in American history, he presided over the first overall increase in the abortion rate and ratio during a presidency since Jimmy Carter. As a result, there were 56,080 more abortions in the final year of Trump’s presidency than there were in the final year of Obama’s. ...

Why did decades of abortion declines reverse themselves in the Trump years? Why is the decrease in abortion after Dobbs so much less than even the most informed observers anticipated? ...

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Michael McConnell And Marcus Cole Receive Religious Liberty Awards

Michael W. McConnell (Richard and Frances Mallery Professor of Law and Director of the Constitutional Law Center, Stanford) and Marcus Cole (Joseph A. Matson Dean and Professor of Law, Notre Dame) were honored last month at Becket's annual gala in New York City for their work defending religious liberty.

Michael McConnell received the 2023 Canterbury Medal, religious liberty’s highest honor:

The 2023 Canterbury Medal Gala honored Professor Michael W. McConnell, Director of the Constitutional Law Center at Stanford Law School and a former federal judge, for his decades-long commitment to the cause of religious liberty. As a professor, scholar, advocate, and public servant, Professor McConnell’s career has provided a strong and unfailing defense of religious liberty for all.

In his distinguished career, Professor McConnell has played a key role in advancing the principle of religious freedom for all people. As an advocate, Professor McConnell has argued many religious liberty cases in the U.S. Supreme Court and other federal courts. Following his unanimous confirmation by the Senate, Professor McConnell served as a federal judge on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit from 2002-2009. He also played a central role in founding the first religious liberty law clinic at Stanford Law School, where he continues to teach courses on constitutional law, the First Amendment, and constitutional history.

Michael McConnell's acceptance speech (video; text).

Marcus Cole received the 2023 Legal Service Award "for his trailblazing expansion of the clinic concept in launching Notre Dame’s Religious Liberty Initiative." Marcus Cole's acceptance speech (text).

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