Structuring a Tax Policy Workshop Series -- Michigan

Reuven Avi-Yonah, host of Michigan's Tax Policy Workshop Series, continues our series on how to best structure a tax policy workshop series:

Our Tax Policy Workshop is loosely modeled on NYU's, except that the authors get to present their own papers. It is attended by students and faculty from law, economics and business. The speaker presents for about half an hour and then we have an open discussion. Two recent innovations have been to enforce a rule that students get to speak first (otherwise faculty tend to dominate the discussion), and to have a preparatory session with students the week before the speaker presentation (so that we only have six or seven presenters each year other than thirteen). Over the years since 2002, we have been able to hear many of the top names in the field, including both lawyers and economists. We try not to have too many repeat players, so as to open the opportunity to as wide a field as possible. I think we all feel the series has been a successful contribution to the intellectual life of the law school and to our students, including both the JDs and the tax LLM students (for whom it is a required course).