Choi: The Price of Deference — An Empirical Study Of Mayo And Chevron

Jonathan Choi (Minnesota; Google Scholar), Legal Analysis, Policy Analysis, and the Price of Deference: An Empirical Study of Mayo and Chevron, 38 Yale J. on Reg. 818 (2021):

A huge literature contemplates the theoretical relationship between judicial deference and agency rulemaking. But relatively little empirical work has studied the actual effect of deference on how agencies draft regulations. As a result, some of the most important questions surrounding deference—whether it encourages agencies to focus on policy analysis instead of legal analysis, its relationship to procedures like notice and comment—have so far been dominated by conjecture and anecdote.

Because Chevron, U.S.A., Inc. v. Natural Resources Defense Council, Inc. applied simultaneously across agencies, it has been difficult to separate its specific causal effect from other contemporaneous events in the 1980s, like the rise of cost-benefit analysis and the new textualism. This Article contends with this problem by exploiting a unique event in administrative law: the Supreme Court’s 2011 decision in Mayo Foundation v. United States, which required that courts apply Chevron deference to interpretative tax regulations. By altering the deference regime applicable to one specific category of regulation, Mayo created a natural experiment with a treatment group (interpretative tax regulations) and a control group (all other regulations).

This Article uses natural language processing and various statistical methods to evaluate the causal effect of Chevron deference.

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Choi: A Survey Of Law Professors On Tax Reform

Jonathan Choi (Minnesota; Google Scholar), A Survey of Law Professors on Tax Reform, 38 Yale J. on Reg.: Notice & Comment (Aug. 25, 2021):

As the Biden administration’s inaugural budget reaches the crucial final steps of the legislative process, a number of significant tax reforms are under consideration for the first time in years. The administration has appointed several tax law professors to help advise the effort. But what does the tax academy in general think? What Biden administration reforms do the most tax law professors support, and which reforms would professors like to see which the administration has not yet proposed? To answer these questions, I surveyed American tax law professors on their opinions of fundamental tax law reforms. ...

The survey was sent to all American tax law professors listed in the Directory of Law Teachers published by the Association of American Law Schools. 486 surveys were distributed, and 167 responses were received, giving a 34.4% response rate. The survey opened on July 7, 2021 and closed on July 16, 2021.

The format of the survey was simple: a single page with a series of potential federal tax reforms. The respondent was asked whether she supported the reforms, and for each could indicate “Yes,” “No,” or “Neutral / No Opinion.” ...

The following graph shows “Yes if Opinion” percentages, again in descending order.

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Legal Education, Remote Learning, Technology, And Access To Justice

Legal Tech News, Law Schools Are Offering Vendors Tuition Revenue in Bid to Grow Remote Education:

More law schools are considering offering remote courses after the pandemic. But that transition to digital education comes with a price—which can take the form of the law school paying a portion of its tuition revenue to an online program management (OPM) company for multiple years of aid. While some caution that such arrangements could be opaque and unfair, many note that as law schools accelerate their transition to remote education, the need for OPMs is only going to increase.

Lee Bradshaw, chief strategy officer of online program management provider Noodle, said the final holdouts to remote higher education—law and medical schools—are finally beginning to embrace a hybrid learning model.

“We’re seeing an undercurrent in medical and law,” said Bradshaw. “I know [of a] few university-driven initiatives to bring in a bunch of universities to have conversations about online [education] for law and medical schools. For me, that’s the beginning of a sea change for those disciplines.”

Specifically, he said, more U.S. law schools are applying to the American Bar Association for a 306 distance education variance. 

Legal Tech News, COVID Didn't Spark Law Schools' Tech Transformation, but It Did Accelerate It:

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2nd Circuit Backs NYU Law Review In Challenge To Diversity Policy

Following up on my previous post, Lawsuits Against Harvard, NYU Law Reviews Claim Racial, Gender Preferences:  Reuters, Appeals Court Backs NYU Law Review in Challenge to Diversity Policy:

New York University School of Law's flagship law review can claim another court win over a group of academics challenging the journal’s diversity policies.

A three-judge panel from the 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals on Wednesday unanimously affirmed a lower court’s dismissal of the group’s 2018 lawsuit against the NYU Law Review [Faculty, Alumni, and Students Opposed to Racial Preferences v. New York University, No. 20-1508 (2d Cir. Aug. 25, 2021)]. The appeals court agreed that Faculty, Alumni, and Students Opposed to Racial Preferences (FASORP) lacked standing. ...

FASORP sued the NYU Law Review in 2018, alleging that its diversity policies violate "Title VI and Title IX by using race and sex preferences when selecting its members, editors, and articles." It also sued the Harvard Law Review in federal court in Boston on nearly identical grounds in a suit that was dismissed in 2019, which it did not appeal. ...

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Pepperdine Seeks To Hire An Entry-Level Tax Prof

Pepperdine University Rick J. Caruso School of Law:

Pepperdine University Caruso School of Law is seeking several entry-level, tenure-track faculty to join our vibrant community. We invite candidates with research and teaching interests across all areas of law to apply, and have particular teaching needs in Torts, Tax, Criminal Law, Ethical Lawyering and Intellectual Property Law.

The School of Law is an ABA-accredited, AALS member law school located in Malibu, California. Pepperdine is a Christian university committed to the highest standards of academic excellence and Christian values, where students are strengthened for lives of purpose, service, and leadership. The School of Law welcomes applications from people of all faiths and is particularly interested in receiving applications from candidates who would contribute to the diversity and excellence of the faculty. Pepperdine University is an equal opportunity employer and does not unlawfully discriminate on the basis of race, color, national or ethnic origin, religion, age, gender, disability, prior military service or sexual orientation.

For further information, please contact Professor Victoria Schwartz, Chair, Faculty Appointments Committee.

Law schools looking to hire Tax Profs to start in the 2022-23 academic year:

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Bahadur: The U.S. News Law School Rankings Are Racist

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

The U.S. News and World Report Law School Rankings invoke ideas about excellence and high achievement in the legal academy, but under the surface, they also operate as a catalyst for systemic racism. They do this by capitalizing on system justification, a palliative evolutionary mechanism that forces all members of society, from privileged high socioeconomic groups to the disenfranchised, to buttress the societal status quo pervasively and unconsciously.

These responsive desires to keep the status quo invoked by the rankings are the same ones responsible for the perpetuation of the caste system in India, and every other division of human societies into dominant and disenfranchised groups. This system justification is not subject to introspection because it operates through powerful unconscious mechanisms. As a result, consciously antiracist people do not experience dissonance when making institutional decisions based on the rankings, even though those decisions perpetuate deeply rooted structural racism.

The only schools enrolling black students at the same level as their representation in the general population are the schools U.S. News ranks so poorly that they are not even assigned a numerical ranking, listed only as Tier 2 schools.

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Zelenak: The American Families Plan And The Future Of The Mass Income Tax

Lawrence Zelenak (Duke), The American Families Plan and the Future of the Mass Income Tax, 172 Tax Notes Fed. 1277 (Aug. 23, 2021):

In this article, Zelenak argues that enactment of President Biden’s American Families Plan would threaten the status of the federal individual income tax as a tax imposed on most of the population, and he explores the fiscal citizenship implications of an income tax system under which almost all adults file tax returns but only about half pay tax.

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Federal Tax Procedure (2021 Practitioner Edition)

John A. Townsend (Houston), Federal Tax Procedure (2021 Practitioner Ed.) (1,060 pages):

Federal Tax Procedure is a book originally prepared for a course on Tax Procedure taught by Adjunct Professor Townsend at the University of Houston School of Law (through the Fall of 2015). The book is updated annually in August. This is the 2021 edition. The book and related materials contain text discussion, relevant Code Section citations, and certain cases designed to encourage students to think about the Tax Procedure process. The book is in electronic format (Adobe Acrobat PDF format) and is in two versions: (1) a Student Edition (no footnotes); and (2) a Practitioner Edition (same as Student Edition but including footnotes). This is the Practitioner Edition. Both versions are available on Mr. Townsend's SSRN web page.

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The 10 Most-Cited Tax Faculty

Following up on last week's post, The Most-Cited Tax Faculty At The 68 Most-Cited Law Schools:  Brian Leiter (Chicago) has updated his ranking of the Ten Most-Cited Tax Faculty to now cover the 2016-2020 period (see prior most-cited tax faculty rankings: 2000-2007, 2005-2010, 2009-2013, 2010-2014, 2013-2017):

Rank	Name	School	Citations	Age
1	Reuven Avi-Yonah	Michigan	420	64
2	Michael Graetz	Columbia	380	77
3	David Weisbach	Chicago	310	58
4	Daniel Shaviro	NYU	300	64
5	Victor Fleischer	UC-Irvine	270	50
	Lawrence Zelenak	Duke	270	63
7	Alan Auerbach	UC-Berkeley	210	70
	Joseph Bankman	Stanford	210	66
9	David Gamage	Indiana	200	43
10	Leandra Lederman	Indiana	190	55

Leiter also lists five highly-cited scholars who work partly in tax:

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Kaplan & Federici: The New Income Projection Rules For Defined Contribution Plans

Richard L. Kaplan (Illinois; Google Scholar) & Barry Federici, The New Income Projection Rules for Defined Contribution Plans, 172 Tax Notes Fed. 897 (Aug. 9, 2021):

The SECURE Act enacted at the end of 2019 requires that defined contribution retirement plans provide plan participants will projections of how much monthly income their accumulated balances will generate upon their retirement. This article analyzes the new Labor Department regulations that go into effect on September 18, 2021 and suggests various revisions, including an explanation of likely tax consequences.

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They Offered Early Retirement To Faculty. Here’s Why I Took It At 51.

Chronicle of Higher Education op-ed:  They Offered Early Retirement. Here’s Why I Took It at 51., by James M. Lang (Assumption College):

[O]ver the past few years I have felt an increasing sense of imbalance in my professional life. My primary passion has always been writing. I write out of a compulsion that I don’t fully understand, but that gives my life purpose and joy. ...

I’m happiest when I am writing, and I am convinced I have many more books left in me. But with each passing year, as my teaching, service, and administrative duties grew, I seemed to have less and less time to write.

I thought a lot about how to make more time for it but couldn’t see any easy remedies. My university paid me a salary, after all, and had given me a good life. My first responsibilities had to be toward my students, my colleagues, and my institution. Sure, research and writing are part of my job — but a relatively small part at a teaching-intensive institution like mine.

In short, I began to feel less like a plant blooming in a sunny garden and more like one fighting for sun in a shady corner of the yard, sending out tendrils and vines in search of new soil and light. But I had been in that container for so long I couldn’t see how to uproot myself and embark upon a different kind of professional life.

Along came the pandemic. Strange how a global health crisis can clarify the mind: I have only so many years left on the planet. Someday my back will indeed begin to stiffen, and all the yoga in the world won’t turn back time. Someday my passion for writing may diminish. And someday the ideas and words may not flow as easily as they do now.

In April I received an email letting me know that — due to a combination of age and years of service — I was eligible for an early-retirement package.

When the email arrived, I dismissed it. I’m too young for that, I thought. But I kept it in my inbox. For two or three weeks I thought about the retirement package, talked it over with my wife, and thought about it some more.

And then, dear reader, I took it.

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Deans' Leadership In Legal Education Symposium

16th Deans' Leadership in Legal Education Symposium, 52 U. Tol. L. Rev. 197-352 (2021):

• Nicholas W. Allard (Former Dean, Brooklyn), Sweet Are the Uses of Adversity, 52 U. Tol. L. Rev. 197 (2021)
• D. Benjamin Barros (Dean, Toledo) & Cameron M. Morrissey (J.D. 2021, Toledo), A Survey of Law School Deans on the Impact of the COVID-19 Pandemic, 52 U. Tol. L. Rev. 241 (2021)
• Brian Gallini (Dean, Willamette; Google Scholar), Pandemic Leadership, 52 U. Tol. L. Rev. 261 (2021)
• Vincent R. Johnson (Former Interim Dean, St. Mary's), The End of the Golden Age of American Legal Education: My Year as Interim Dean, 52 U. Tol. L. Rev. 289 (2021)
• Michael Waterstone (Dean, Loyola-L.A.), Top Ten Leadership Lessons Learned From Being Dean During COVID-19, 52 U. Tol. L. Rev. 337 (2021)

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Admissions Data At Nearly Half Of The U.S. News Top 50: Higher LSATs, UGPAs, And Enrollment

Following up on last week's post:  with Spivey Consulting reporting the admissions statistics for nearly half of the U.S. News Top 50 law schools, LSAT (+1.3) and UGPA (+0.4) medians are up, as well as enrollment (+17.0):

Ten law schools increased enrollment by 15% or more:

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Lesson From The Tax Court: The 411 On Section 911

The pullout from Afghanistan has dominated the news, and many of our lives.  While it is natural to think of the war as fought by U.S. soldiers, we cannot forget the considerable number of defense contractor personnel who provided significant support.  According to this report, there were over 88,000 contractor personnel in Afghanistan nine years ago.  Many were U.S. citizens.  While the number has dropped significantly in recent years, it appears multiple thousands of non-military U.S. citizens needed to be evacuated back to the United States this year.

Today's lesson involves one such contractor and the proper application of the §911 exclusion to her.  Whatever you may think about the tax issue, I know you join me in hoping this taxpayer has made a safe return to the U.S.

Section 911 allows certain taxpayers—called “qualified individuals”—to exclude from their gross income certain amounts of income earned from outside the United States.  The case of Deborah C. Wood v. Commissioner, T.C. Memo. 2021-103 (Aug. 18, 2021) (Judge Lauber), looks at whether a civilian defense contract worker in Afghanistan could use §911 to exclude her wage income.  It teaches a short but complete lesson on what it takes to be a qualified individual for the §911 exclusion.  It is worth your time to read and think about.  Details below the fold. 

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BigLaw Associate Hiring Surges 24% As Legal Business Booms

Bloomberg Law, Big Law Hiring Practices Bring Shortages as Client Demands Grow:

Conservative entry-level hiring practices that bolstered Big Law firms after the Great Recession constrain them now as they struggle to find associates for the mountains of work after pandemic shutdowns.

Am Law 200 firms have hired more than 8,500 associates this year through Aug. 20, a 24% increase over the previous three-year average, according to data from Decipher, which provides lateral hiring due diligence services for law firms.

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TaxProf Blog Weekend Roundup

Saturday:

• This Week's Ten Most Popular TaxProf Blog Posts
• A Survey Of Deans On The Impact Of The COVID-19 Pandemic On Their Law Schools
• Reflections On Elite Education: In A Just World, Would The College I Teach At Exist?
• Galle: The Agency Costs Of Forever Philanthropy

Sunday:

• NY Times: The New Chief Chaplain At Harvard Is Atheist Author Of 'Good Without God'
• NY Times: Why We Need To Start Talking About God
• NY Times: A More Secular America Is Not Just A Problem For Republicans
• The Top Five New Tax Papers

NY Times: The New Chief Chaplain At Harvard Is Atheist Author Of 'Good Without God'

New York Times, The New Chief Chaplain at Harvard? An Atheist:

The Puritan colonists who settled in New England in the 1630s had a nagging concern about the churches they were building: How would they ensure that the clergymen would be literate? Their answer was Harvard University, a school that was established to educate the ministry and adopted the motto “Truth for Christ and the Church.” It was named after a pastor, John Harvard, and it would be more than 70 years before the school had a president who was not a clergyman.

Nearly four centuries later, Harvard’s organization of chaplains has elected as its next president an atheist named Greg Epstein, who takes on the job this week.

Mr. Epstein, 44, author of the book “Good Without God,” is a seemingly unusual choice for the role. He will coordinate the activities of more than 40 university chaplains, who lead the Christian, Jewish, Hindu, Buddhist and other religious communities on campus. Yet many Harvard students — some raised in families of faith, others never quite certain how to label their religious identities — attest to the influence that Mr. Epstein has had on their spiritual lives.

“There is a rising group of people who no longer identify with any religious tradition but still experience a real need for conversation and support around what it means to be a good human and live an ethical life,” said Mr. Epstein, who was raised in a Jewish household and has been Harvard’s humanist chaplain since 2005, teaching students about the progressive movement that centers people’s relationships with one another instead of with God.

To Mr. Epstein’s fellow campus chaplains, at least, the notion of being led by an atheist is not as counterintuitive as it might sound; his election was unanimous.

“Maybe in a more conservative university climate there might be a question like ‘What the heck are they doing at Harvard, having a humanist be the president of the chaplains?’” said Margit Hammerstrom, the Christian Science chaplain at Harvard. “But in this environment it works. Greg is known for wanting to keep lines of communication open between different faiths.”

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NY Times: Why We Need To Start Talking About God

New York Times op-ed:  Why We Need to Start Talking About God, by Tish Harrison Warren (Priest, Anglican Church; Author, Liturgy of the Ordinary: Sacred Practices in Everyday Life (Christianity Today's 2018 Book of the Year) , :

Karl Barth, a 20th-century Swiss theologian, is credited with saying that Christians must live our lives with a Bible in one hand and a newspaper in the other. Barth, who was a leader of a group of Christians in Germany resisting Hitler, understood that faith is not a pious, protective bubble shielding us from the urgent needs of the world. It is the very impetus that leads us into active engagement with society. People of faith must immerse ourselves in messy questions of how to live faithfully in a particular moment with particular headlines calling for particular attention and particular responses.

While Christians and other religious people may wonder how broader culture affects our faith (or why we must hold a newspaper in one hand), others may wonder why faith is relevant to the contemporary world at all (or why we hold a Bible in the other). Membership in a house of worship has declined steadily in the United States over the past eight decades and, according to a Gallup poll, dropped below 50 percent this year. ...

As a pastor, I see again and again that in defining moments of people’s lives — the birth of children, struggles in marriage, deep loss and disappointment, moral crossroads, facing death — they talk about God and the spiritual life. In these most tender moments, even those who aren’t sure what exactly they believe cannot avoid big questions of meaning: who we are, what we are here for, why we believe what we believe, why beauty and horror exist.

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NY Times: A More Secular America Is A Problem For Both Republicans And Democrats

New York Times op-ed:  A More Secular America Is Not Just a Problem for Republicans, by Ryan Burge (Baptist Pastor; Author, The Nones: Where They Came From, Who They Are, and Where They Are Going (2021); and Assistant Professor of Political Science at Eastern Illinois University):

Since 1988, the General Social Survey has been asking Americans of different ages what they believe about God. For decades, the answer did not change much. Around 70 percent of members of the Silent Generation said that they “know God really exists” and “have no doubts about it.” That same sentiment was shared by about 63 percent of baby boomers and Generation Xers.

But in 2018, millennials expressed a lot less certainty. Only 44 percent had no doubts about the existence of God. Even more doubtful were members of Generation Z — just one-third claimed certain belief in God.

Today, scholars are finding that by almost any metric they use to measure religiosity, younger generations are much more secular than their parents or grandparents. In responses to survey questions, over 40 percent of the youngest Americans claim no religious affiliation, and just a quarter say they attend religious services weekly or more.

Americans have not come to terms with how this cultural shift will affect so many facets of society — and that’s no more apparent than when it comes to the future of the Republican and Democratic Parties.

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The Top Five New Tax Papers

There is quite a bit of movement in this week's list of the Top 5 Recent Tax Paper Downloads, with a new paper #1 paper and new papers debuting on the list at #2 and #5:

1. [316 Downloads]  Serenity Now! The (Not So) Inclusive Framework and the Multilateral Instrument, by Yariv Brauner (Florida; Google Scholar)
2. [272 Downloads]  Federal Tax Procedure (2021 Practitioner Ed.), by John A. Townsend (Houston)
3. [261 Downloads]  State Aid Prohibition — The New GAAR in Town, by Joachim Englisch (Muenster)
4. [155 Downloads]  Taxation And Law And Political Economy, by Jeremy Bearer-Friend (George Washington; Google Scholar), Ari Glogower (Ohio State; Google Scholar), Ariel Jurow Kleiman (San Diego; Google Scholar) & Clint Wallace (South Carolina, Google Scholar) (reviewed by Hayes Holderness (Richmond) here)
5. [141 Downloads]  New Puzzles In International Tax Agreements, by Wei Cui (British Columbia; Google Scholar)

This Week's Ten Most Popular TaxProf Blog Posts

1. Bryan Camp (Texas Tech), Lesson From The Tax Court: The Refund Lookback Period Trap
2. Wisconsin State Journal, University Of Wisconsin Fires Professor For Not Wearing Mask In Class; Other Professors Quit Over Mask Mandates
3. Bloomberg, 61% Of Americans Paid No Federal Income Tax In 2020 (Up From 44% In 2019)
4. Paul Caron (Dean, Pepperdine), U.S. News Abandons Plan To Issue Citations Ranking Of Law Faculty
5. Martin Sullivan (Tax Analysts), The Tax Cuts And Jobs Act Delivered: Big Tech Moved $40 Billion Of Profits To The United States In 2020
6. Harvard Law Today, Five Years After Ditching Seal Tied To Slaveholder, Harvard Law School Unveils New Logo
7. Paul Caron (Dean, Pepperdine), Early Returns On The Law School Class Of 2024: Higher LSAT Scores, UGPAs, And Enrollment
8. Gregory Sisk (St. Thomas) & Nicole Catlin (St. Thomas), Scholarly Impact of Law School Faculties in 2021: Updating the Leiter Score Ranking for the Top Third
9. Gregory Sisk (St. Thomas) & Nicole Catlin (St. Thomas), The 68 Most-Cited Law Faculties
10. Gregory Sisk (St. Thomas) & Nicole Catlin (St. Thomas), The Most-Cited Deans At The 68 Most-Cited Law Schools

A Survey Of Deans On The Impact Of The COVID-19 Pandemic On Their Law Schools

D. Benjamin Barros (Dean, Toledo) & Cameron M. Morrissey (J.D. 2021, Toledo), A Survey of Law School Deans on the Impact of the COVID-19 Pandemic, 52 U. Tol. L. Rev. 241 (2021):

We conducted an anonymous survey of deans at ABA-accredited law schools asking questions about the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on legal education and on law school students, faculty, and staff. Invitations to participate in the survey were distributed through a listserv maintained by the ABA. The first invitation was sent out on November 20, 2020 and the last response was received on December 18, 2020. The survey was comprised of 56 questions, including six optional, extended response prompts. We received 51 total responses, representing a bit more than 25% of the 199 deans of ABA-accredited law schools. Not all respondents completed all of the questions, but we received responses for all of the questions on the survey from at least 20% of the 199 deans of ABA-Accredited law schools.

Our key findings include the following:

1. Deans overall have moderate concern over the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on their students’ education, with some reporting high concern and some reporting no concern.
2. Most deans did not feel political pressure to maintain in-person classes during the pandemic. A small number of deans at public institutions, however, did feel substantial political pressure to maintain in-person classes.
3. Most law schools had relatively low rates of COVID-19 infections among students, faculty, and staff.
4. J.D. enrollment at most law schools increased at most law schools during the pandemic. Enrollment by non-J.D. students and international students tended to go down. Overall enrollment at parent universities also tended to go down.
5. The COVID-19 pandemic had a negative impact on: a) the finances of many, but not all, law schools; b) the emotional wellbeing of law school students, faculty, and staff; c) the stress level of law school deans.

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Reflections On Elite Education: In A Just World, Would The College I Teach At Exist?

Chronicle of Higher Education op-ed:  Reflections on Elite Education: In a Just World, Would the College I Teach at Exist?, by Jonny Thakkar (Swarthmore):

One of the wonders of modern academe is that the ideal of workplace democracy should be so prevalent among people who regularly endure faculty meetings. It’s not hard to see how lived experience might lead academics to a Churchillian argument for workplace democracy as the least-bad option, a way of preventing administrative tyranny and legitimating decisions, but how anyone can take seriously the Arendtian vision of speechifying as some higher form of life I really don’t know.

Swarthmore College, where I have taught for the last four years, is run pretty democratically as a result of its Quaker heritage, to the point where any erosion of faculty governance is still noticed and lamented even if the most important decisions seem to be out of our hands. Much of the work is trivial but slow. ... Whether professors’ time is best devoted to such Solomonic inquiries is a question I have not yet seen raised — this is what faculty governance looks like, apparently, and in any case nobody forces you to show up.

The problem with not showing up, of course, is that sometimes important things do get debated, and every so often they even get decided. ... Something about the setting encourages melodrama and grandstanding, not to mention a tendency toward digression that can make concentration, especially via Zoom, seem like a mark of sainthood. A lot has to do with the internal logic of this kind of gathering; everyone has a right to speak, but it’s first-come-first-served and some were born with their hands up. But if people jump up to speak (as I sometimes do) or if they feel compelled to enter a comment in the chat, it’s generally because they care deeply, not only about the issue at hand but also about the underlying question of what Swarthmore stands for. It is this question, unresolved and for the most part unposed, that is the ultimate source of conflict.

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Galle: The Agency Costs Of Forever Philanthropy

Brian D. Galle (Georgetown), The Quick (Spending) and the Dead: The Agency Costs of Forever Philanthropy, 74 Vand. L. Rev. 757 (2021) (reviewed by Michelle Layser (Illinois) here):

American philanthropic institutions control upwards of a trillion dollars of wealth. Because contributions to these entities are deductible from both income and estate taxes, and the entities’ earnings are tax-free, that trillion dollars is heavily underwritten by contemporary taxpayers. Law offers little assurance that those who pay will be those who benefit, however. To the contrary, since these subsidies become more valuable the longer charitable assets are left unspent, law strongly encourages philanthropies to save rather than spend, even in situations of great current need. Other legal rules further encourage grant-making institutions to strive to exist “in perpetuity.”

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Weekly SSRN Tax Article Review And Roundup: Saito Reviews Administering Taxes Democratically By Wallace And Blaylock

This week, Blaine Saito (Northeastern) reviews a new work by Clint Wallace (South Carolina; Google Scholar) & Jeff Blaylock (J.D. 2019, South Carolina), Administering Taxes Democratically?, 94 Temp. L. Rev. __ (2022).

Taxes are both the lifeblood of the state and a major power of the state. Thus, the issue of democratic values intersecting with taxation is one of cardinal import. Administering Taxes Democratically, a forthcoming piece in the Temple Law Review by Clinton Wallace and Jeff Blaylock, looks at a key aspect of that issue, the development of guidance from the Treasury and the IRS. The article adds an important contribution to the conversation regarding the unification of tax law and administrative law. In many ways, the piece is a bit of a cautionary tale of being careful what one wishes for.

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Tax Policy In The Biden Administration

• The American Prospect, Corporate Tax Dodging Won’t Go Away Until We Fix Our Tax Code
• Bloomberg, Crypto Doesn’t Have to Enable Tax Cheats
• Bloomberg, Global Minimum Tax Rate: A Strategy in the Tax Collection Battle
• Bloomberg, Taxes on Rich Test Democrats’ Unity on Biden Economic Agenda
• Common Dreams, Sanders Vows to Tax Billionaires Who Grew 62% Richer During Pandemic
• The Hill, Senate Democrats Release More Details of International Tax Plan

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Weekly Legal Education Roundup

• AALS, Journal Of Legal Education Publishes New Issue
• ABA Journal, ABA Requires Law Schools To Disclose Student Loan And Diversity Data
• Paul Caron (Dean, Pepperdine), U.S. News Abandons Plan To Issue Citations Ranking Of Law Faculty
  
• Adam Chilton (Chicago), Jonathan Masur (Chicago) & Kyle Rozema (Washington U.), Rethinking Law School Tenure Standards
• Trent England (Oklahoma Council of Public Affairs), Is CRT coming to Oklahoma law schools?
• Scott Fruehwald (Legal Skills Prof Blog), ABA Council Approves Addition of Bias, Cross-Cultural Competency and Racism Training Requirement to Law School Accreditation Standards

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Framing Minimum Technology Standards For Law School Graduates

Iantha M. Haight (BYU), Digital Natives, Techno-Transplants: Framing Minimum Technology Standards for Law School Graduates, 44 J. Legal Prof. 175 (2020):

Adjustments need to be made to legal education for new attorneys to be ready for the technological demands of legal practice. In 2012, the American Bar Association added a duty of technology competence to the standard for general competence in the Model Rules of Professional Conduct, which has now been adopted by 38 states. The new Comment 8 to Rule 1.1 was an important response to decades of developments in technology that have profoundly affected, and will continue to affect, legal practice. However, like the original duty of competence, the specific elements of the duty of technology competence are rather vague

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The Tax Cuts And Jobs Act Delivered: Big Tech Moved $40 Billion Of Profits To The United States In 2020

Martin A. Sullivan, Big Tech Is Moving Profit to the United States, 172 Tax Notes Fed. 1209 (Aug. 23, 2021):

Several leading U.S. tech companies had a dramatic increase in the domestic share of their worldwide profits in 2020, according to the most recent annual reports available. For the 20 companies examined here, domestic profits in 2020 are estimated to be about $40 billion above what they would have been without passage of the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act. For Big Tech, it appears that the intended effects of the international provisions of the TCJA may be taking hold.

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Deep Applicant Pool Yields Record-Breaking Diversity At Top Law Schools

Reuters, Deep Applicant Pool Yields Record-breaking Diversity at Top Law Schools:

A wave of top law schools brought in their most diverse first-year classes ever this month, aided by a nearly 13% increase in the national applicant pool, with Harvard and Yale law schools reporting that students of color made up more than half of their 1L enrollment.

At Harvard Law School, 56% of the J.D. class of 2024 are students of color, up from 47% a year ago, and 54% of the new class are women, the school reported. ... 

Students of color comprise 54% of Yale Law School’s new 1L class, up slightly from 52% the previous year, according to recent data released by the school. Women account for 51% of the new class, while 17% are first-generation college students. ...

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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 August 1, 2021) 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)	201,749	Reuven Avi-Yonah (Michigan)	7,952
2	Dan Shaviro (NYU)	123,166	Lily Batchelder (NYU)	4,431
3	Lily Batchelder (NYU)	122,065	Kim Clausing (UCLA)	4,046
4	Daniel Hemel (Chicago)	120,167	Bridget Crawford (Pace)	4,012
5	David Gamage (Indiana-Bloom.)	119,309	David Kamin (NYU)	3,911
6	Darien Shanske (UC-Davis)	112,380	D. Dharmapala (Chicago)	3,455
7	David Kamin (NYU)	109,814	Ruth Mason (Virginia)	3,346
8	Cliff Fleming (BYU)	106,078	Daniel Hemel (Chicago)	3,262
9	Manoj Viswanathan (UC-Hastings)	102,977	Richard Ainsworth (Boston Univ.)	2,622
10	Rebecca Kysar (Fordham)	102,058	Margaret Ryznar (Indiana-Indy)	2,539
11	Ari Glogower (Ohio State)	101,102	Zachary Liscow (Yale)	2,436
12	Michael Simkovic (USC)	45,782	Robert Sitkoff (Harvard)	2,310
13	D. Dharmapala (Chicago)	45,011	David Gamage (Indiana-Bloom.)	2,256
14	Paul Caron (Pepperdine)	38,541	Hugh Ault (Boston College)	2,079
15	Louis Kaplow (Harvard)	35,490	Darien Shanske (UC-Davis)	2,024
16	Richard Ainsworth (Boston Univ.)	33,016	Dan Shaviro (NYU)	2,001
17	Bridget Crawford (Pace)	28,524	Louis Kaplow (Harvard)	1,988
18	Ed Kleinbard (USC)	27,865	Brad Borden (Brooklyn)	1,724
19	Vic Fleischer (UC-Irvine)	27,673	Yariv Brauner (Florida)	1,682
20	Robert Sitkoff (Harvard)	26,857	Diane Ring (Boston College)	1,665
21	Brad Borden (Brooklyn)	26,644	Francine Lipman (UNLV)	1,550
22	Jim Hines (Michigan)	26,066	Shu-Yi Oei (Boston College)	1,507
23	Ted Seto (Loyola-L.A.)	25,136	Vic Fleischer (UC-Irvine)	1,409
24	Katie Pratt (Loyola-L.A.)	24,639	Michael Simkovic (USC)	1,395
25	Richard Kaplan (Illinois)	24,568	Paul Caron (Pepperdine)	1,379

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Seven Years After Dan Markel's Murder, Katherine Magbanua's Attorneys Seek Delay In October Trial Due To COVID Concerns

WCTV, Magbanua Defense Team Pushes to Delay Trial, Citing Rising COVID-19 Cases:

Katherine Magbanua’s defense team raised COVID-19 concerns, asking to delay her trial in a Wednesday afternoon case management hearing. ... Magbanua’s defense attorneys, Christopher DeCoste and Tara Kawass, say current COVID-19 case numbers are concerning. Both are cancer survivors and immunocompromised.

During the hearing, they added that Magbanua had tested positive for COVID-19 ten days prior, but negative Wednesday morning.

They added that socially distancing from her during trial could unintentionally sway the jury. ...

The defense team also brought up concerns about masks in courtrooms. DeCoste cited the old practice of putting a hood over a person being hanged, so that the spectators wouldn’t have to see facial expressions. He argued the jury could be more inclined to convict Magbanua primarily because they could not see the bottom half of her face under a mask. ...

Judge Robert Wheeler denied the verbal request to continue the trial to a later date in court on Wednesday, but he instructed the defense to file a written motion about their concerns.

The trial date is currently set for October 4.

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Oei Presents 'Slack' In The Data Age Today At Yale

Shu-Yi Oei (Boston College; Google Scholar) presents "Slack" in the Data Age (with Diane M. Ring (Boston College; Google Scholar)) virtually today as part of the Yale Information Society Project hosted by Nikolas Guggenberger. 

This Article examines how increasingly ubiquitous data and information affect the role of “slack” in the law. Slack is the informal latitude to break the law without sanction. Pockets of slack exist for various reasons, including information imperfections, enforcement resource constraints, deliberate nonenforcement of problematic laws, politics, biases, and luck. Slack is important in allowing flexibility and forbearance in the legal system, but it also risks enabling selective and uneven enforcement. Increasingly available data is now upending slack, causing it to contract and exacerbating the risks of unfair enforcement.

This Article delineates the various contexts in which slack arises and presents a bounded defense of slack, despite its risks and notwithstanding the parallel existence of formal leniency provisions in the law. It explains how increasingly available data is reshaping slack and highlights the risk of disparate contraction of slack for different populations along lines of race, political power, and sophistication. Ultimately, this Article proposes a framework for managing the complex relationship between slack and data and suggests policy solutions to address data-driven contraction of slack while minimizing slack’s risks.

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Choi Presents Beyond Purposivism In Tax Law Today At Indiana

Jonathan Choi (Minnesota; Google Scholar) presents Beyond Purposivism in Tax Law (video) virtually today as part of the Indiana Tax Policy Colloquium hosted by Leandra Lederman. 

Conventional wisdom holds that purposivist theories of statutory interpretation solve the problem of tax shelters, because the shelters comply with the text but not the purpose of tax statutes. But although tax shelters claim benefits that exceed statutory purpose, so do many generally accepted tax strategies. Purpose alone cannot separate abusive tax shelters from ordinary tax planning.

This Article therefore proposes a new framework to go beyond purposivism in tax law, complementing purposivist techniques with pragmatism or formalism. Pragmatism applies normative judgments when statutory purposes run out; formalism applies rules, like canons of construction, that provide determinate answers when statutory purpose is ambiguous. Pragmatism generally leads to better results in any particular case, while formalism provides taxpayers certainty in planning legitimate transactions. 

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Blank & Osofsky: The Inequity Of Informal Guidance

Joshua D. Blank (UC-Irvine; Google Scholar) & Leigh Osofsky (North Carolina; Google Scholar), The Inequity of Informal Guidance, 75 Vand. L. Rev. ___ (2022):

The co-existence of formal and informal law is a hallmark feature of the U.S. tax system. Congress and the Treasury enact formal law, such as statutes and regulations, while the Internal Revenue Service offers the public informal explanations and summaries, such as taxpayer publications, website frequently asked questions, virtual assistants, and other types of taxpayer guidance. Throughout the COVID-19 pandemic, the IRS increased its use of informal law to help taxpayers understand complex emergency relief rules implemented through the tax system.

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David Hasen Succeeds Charlene Luke As Editor-In-Chief Of The Florida Tax Review

David Hasen has been named Editor in Chief of the Florida Tax Review, succeeding Charlene D. Luke, who served as editor from 2016 to 2021. Prof. Luke and the other tax faculty at the University of Florida Levin College of Law will continue as members of the editorial board, and the Florida Tax Review will continue to draw on the talent of several graduate tax student editors. A board of advisors consisting of tax faculty at other institutions provides additional support and guidance. The Florida Tax Review accepts submissions exclusively through Scholastica.

The Most-Cited Deans At The 68 Most-Cited Law Schools

Following up on yesterday's post, The 68 Most-Cited Law Faculties: here are the 30 deans among the 10-most cited faculty at the Top 68 law schools:

3.  Harvard:  John Manning
6.  UC-Berkeley:  Erwin Chemerinsky
9.  Vanderbilt:  Chris Guthrie
15. Cornell:  Jens David Ohlin 
22. UC-Davis:  Kevin Johnson
23. Boston University:  Angela Onwuachi-Willig; St. Thomas (MN):  Robert Vischer 
27. Arizona:  Marc Miller; William & Mary:  A. Benjamin Spencer 
29. USC:  Andrew Guzman 
30. San Diego:  Robert Schapiro
31. Illinois:  Vikram Amar
36. Utah:  Elizabeth Kronk Warner; Case Western:  Jessica Berg
40. UC-Hastings:  David Faigman
43. Ohio State:  Lincoln Davies; Georgia:  Peter Rutledge
46. American:  Roger A. Fairfax, Jr.; Florida State:  Erin O'Hara O'Connor
49. BYU:  Gordon Smith; Wake Forest:  Jane Aiken 
52. Florida:  Laura  Rosenbury; Iowa:  Kevin Washburn; Richmond: Wendy Collins Perdue
57. Missouri:  Lyrissa Lidsky; San Francisco: Susan Freiwald
59. Boston College:  Diane Ring; Wisconsin:  Daniel Tokaji; Pittsburgh: Amy Wildermuth
63. Pepperdine:  Paul Caron 

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ABA Requires Law Schools To Disclose Student Loan And Diversity Data

Following up on my previous posts (links below):  ABA Journal, Student Loan Data Will Become Part of Law Schools' ABA Required Disclosures:

Starting with the 2023-2024 school year, law schools’ Standard 509 Information Reports will include information about the number of students who receive student loans, and the data will be categorized by race, ethnicity and gender.

The council of the ABA’s Section of Legal Education and Admissions to the Bar approved the change Friday, when it met virtually. Data collection for loan information will start with the 2022-2023 school year, according to a memo from the questionnaire and template committee.

The council also approved a committee recommendation that the reports include data about students who receive scholarships and grants that is categorized by race, ethnicity and gender. Committee members found the information would help the council determine law school compliance with Standard 206, which addresses diversity and inclusion.

Kyle McEntee (Law School Transparency), The ABA To Expand Law School Diversity Data:

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Pepperdine Seeks To Hire An Associate Director of Career Development

This is a great opportunity to join the professional staff at Pepperdine Caruso Law: Pepperdine Jobs, Associate Director of Career Development:

Pepperdine University Rick J. Caruso School of Law is seeking an Associate Director of Career Development to guide and advise students and alumni on their career paths. The Associate Director of Career Development works directly with students and alumni on their career development and professional skills training, and collaborates with the CDO team to prepare resources, provide programs, and expand opportunities for employment.

Duties

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Law School Class Of 2020 Placement Data: Median Salaries Rise, Jobs Fall

NALP, Overall Median Salaries Rise and Private Practice Employment Remains Strong for the Class of 2020, Even as Other Key Employment Metrics Decline Due to the Pandemic:

The National Association for Law Placement, Inc. (NALP) today released its Employment for the Class of 2020 — Selected Findings, a synopsis of key findings from the upcoming annual Jobs & JDs: Employment and Salaries of New Law School Graduates. The release of the full Jobs & JDs report is anticipated in October 2021. This year’s Selected Findings show that despite the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic, employment and salary outcomes remained strong for the Class of 2020, although in many cases they fell short of the highwater marks set by the Class of 2019. ...

Highlights:

• The overall employment rate for the Class of 2020 fell by nearly two percentage points, to 88.4% of graduates for whom employment status was known, compared with 90.3% for the Class of 2019 — halting a pattern of four consecutive years of employment rate growth for the classes of 2016-2019.
• The percentage of graduates taking jobs for which bar passage is required or anticipated declined by 1.6 percentage points, decreasing from 76.2% in 2019 to 74.6% in 2020; however, the figure remains above the rates observed in the prior ten class years through 2018.
• Nearly 57% (56.8%) of employed graduates obtained a job in private practice, an increase of 1.6 percentage points over the previous year, and the highest this percentage has been since 2003.
• The national median salary for the Class of 2020 grew to an all-time high of $75,000, up 3.4% compared to the Class of 2019.
• The national median law firm salary for the Class of 2020 was $130,000, an improvement of 4.0% in comparison to the Class of 2019, and finally again reached the all-time high median law firm starting salary measured for the Class of 2009.
• The share of law firm jobs in the smallest firms of 1-10 lawyers and the largest firms of more than 500 lawyers both rose this year. The percentage of jobs in firms of 1-10 lawyers grew to 32.8% of all law firm jobs compared to 31.5% for the Class of 2019. Jobs in firms of more than 500 lawyers increased by 0.3 percentage points to 30.5% of all law firm jobs.

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McCaffery: The Conflicting Masters of Tax—Revenue-raising And Redistribution

Edward J. McCaffery (USC; Google Scholar), The Conflicting Masters of Tax:

America does not redistribute wealth from its richest citizens. This Article sketches out the conflict between revenue-raising and redistribution that has shaped American tax policy and practice for at least a century and resulted in the sacrifice of redistributive taxes on the altar of the state’s revenue-raising needs. In theory and in practice, the tax system is not a direct generator of redistribution but rather serves as the efficient means to redistributive acts left offstage. Flattened wage taxes emerge as the main source of revenue. The wealthiest pay no tax. This Article examines the tension between the two masters of tax, revenue-raising and redistribution; illustrates with a case study of Senator Bernie Sanders’ wealth tax proposal; and concludes with hopes for using tax systems to better serve redistributive ends, in both theory and practice.

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Deterrence Theory: Key Findings And Challenges

Alex Raskolnikov (Columbia), "Deterrence Theory: Key Findings and Challenges" in Benjamin van Rooij (UC-Irvine; Google Scholar) and D. Daniel Sokol (Florida; Google Scholar) (eds), The Cambridge Handbook of Compliance (Cambridge University Press 2021):

This chapter reviews the key findings of the optimal deterrence theory and discusses the remaining challenges. Some of these challenges reflect current modeling choices and limitations. These include the treatment of the offender’s gains in the social welfare function; the design of the damages multiplier in a realistic, multi-period framework; the effects of different types of uncertainty on behavior; and the study of optional, imperfectly enforced, threshold-based regimes – that is, regimes that reflect the most common real-world regulatory setting. Other challenges arise because several key regulatory features and enforcement outcomes are inconsistent with the deterrence theory’s predictions and prescriptions.

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The Most-Cited Tax Faculty At The 68 Most-Cited Law Schools

Following up on this morning's post, The 68 Most-Cited Law Faculties: here are the 23 Tax Profs among the 10-most cited faculty at the Top 68 law schools:

2.  Chicago:  Daniel Hemel
3.  Harvard:  Louis Kaplow
13.  Michigan:  Reuven Avi-Yonah 
14.  UC-Irvine:  Vic Fleischer
18.  Minnesota:  Kristin Hickman
22.  UC-Davis:  Darien Shanske
29.  USC:  Ed McCaffery, Mike Simkovic
33.  Cardozo:  Ed Zelinsky
43.  Alabama:  Susan Pace Hamill; Georgia:  Gregg Polsky
49.  BYU:  Cliff Fleming
52.  Indiana:  David Gamage, Leandra Lederman; Iowa:  Andy Grewal
59.  Boston College:  Ray Madoff, Shu-Yi Oei, Jim Repetti, Diane Ring; Pittsburgh:  Tony Infanti
63.  Loyola-L.A.:  Ellen Aprill; Pepperdine:  Paul Caron; Santa Clara:  Pat Cain

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Law Firm Climate Change Rankings

Law Students For Climate Accountability, Law Firm Climate Change Scorecard:

Executive Summary
America’s most prestigious law firms have expanded their fossil fuel work.

Last year, Law Students for Climate Accountability released a first-of-its-kind Climate Scorecard, which catalogued the climate-related work of the Vault 100 firms — the 100 top ranked firms in the US — and gave them grades for their performance. Released in October 2020, the report focused on transactional, litigation, and lobbying work over a five-year span that revealed staggering data: the large majority of firms were exacerbating climate change, facilitating $1.31 trillion in transactions and fighting in hundreds of cases to continue warming the planet and endangering low-income communities and communities of color. While 2020 saw the COVID-19 pandemic rage and the American West on fire, dying the skies orange and destroying entire communities, the report served to highlight Big Law’s role in climate injustice.

But despite the dismal state of affairs in Big Law and in the world, some reason for optimism remained. But despite the dismal state of affairs in Big Law and in the world, some reason for optimism remained. As driving declined and the economy stalled, many recognized this moment of crisis as a chance to move away from fossil fuels and move towards a just transition to a livable future.

As driving declined and the economy stalled, many recognized this moment of crisis as a chance to move away from fossil fuels and move towards a just transition to a livable future.

The 2021 Climate Scorecard reveals that instead, top firms fought even harder to accelerate climate change. On the whole, data over a five-year window reveal a startling trend among Vault 100 firms:

• The top firms facilitated a stunning $1.36 trillion in fossil fuel transactions, increasing the top 100’s total by $50 billion from last year’s report;
• These firms also litigated even more cases on behalf of fossil fuel clients, bringing the total from 275 representations to 358; and
• Even more firms earned F grades, which requires a firm to do 8+ cases exacerbating climate change, support over $20 billion in fossil fuel
  transactions or receive over $2 million for fossil fuel lobbying. 10 more firms joined the F class. In all, 36 firms managed to perform the extraordinary amount of fossil fuel work necessary to fail.

Some actors stand out as particularly egregious. For example, Akin Gump did more fossil fuel lobbying than 91 Vault 100 firms combined. Allen & Overy did more fossil fuel transactions than 75 Vault 100 firms combined, and Paul Weiss litigated more fossil fuel cases than 60 Vault 100 firms combined. Firms like these are global leaders in the fight for climate change, dedicating top minds to the mission of a warmer planet.

But they are not alone. Only 3 firms received an A and 9 received a B, while 18 received a C, 34 received a D and 36 received an F. On the whole, 88 of the top 100 firms undertook work that worsened climate change.

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The 68 Most-Cited Law Faculties

Gregory C. Sisk (St. Thomas) & Nicole Catlin (St. Thomas), Scholarly Impact of Law School Faculties in 2021: Updating the Leiter Score Ranking for the Top Third:

This updated 2021 study explores the scholarly impact of law faculties, ranking the top third of ABA-accredited law schools. Refined by Brian Leiter, the “Scholarly Impact Score” for a law faculty is calculated from the mean and the median of total law journal citations over the past five years to the work of tenured faculty members. In addition to a school-by-school ranking, we report the mean, median, and weighted score, along with a list of the tenured law faculty members at each school with the ten highest individual citation counts. ...

To rank law faculties by scholarly impact in 2021, we examined the tenured faculties of 99 law schools. Based on the results of our prior studies of scholarly impact, we included all law schools that previously scored in or near the top 70 for Scholarly Impact Ranking.

Rank	School	Most Cited Scholars (* indicates 70 or older in 2021)	U.S. News Peer Rank	U.S. News Overall Rank
1	Yale	*Ackerman, B.; Amar, A.; Ayres, I.; Balkin, J.; *Eskridge, W.; Koh, H.; Macey, J.; *Post, R.; Siegel, R.; Tyler, T.	1	1
2	Chicago	Baude, W.; Ben-Shahar, O.; Bradley, C.; Ginsburg, T.; Hemel, D.; Huq, A.; * Nussbaum, M.; Posner, E.; * Stone, G.; Strauss, D.	5	4
3	Harvard	Bebchuk, L.; Fallon, R.; Goldsmith, J.; Kaplow, L.; Klarman, M.; *Kraakman, R.; Lessig, L.; Manning, J.;  *Shavell, S.; Vermeule, A.;	1	3
4	NYU	Barkow, R.; Choi, S.; *Epstein, R.; Friedman, B.; Issacharoff, S.; *Miller, A.; *Miller, G.; Pildes, R.; Revesz, R.; Waldron, J.	5	6
5	Columbia	Briffault, R.; *Coffee, J.; Crenshaw, K.; Fagan, J.; Gilson, R.; *Gordon, J.; Hamburger, P.; *Merrill, T.; Metzger, G.; Pozen, D.	4	4
6	UC-Berkeley	Chemerinsky, E.; *Cooter, R.; *Farber, D.; Kerr, O.; Menell, P.; Merges, R.; *Samuelson, P.; Schwartz, P.; Solomon, S.; Yoo, J.	7	9
6	Stanford	*Friedman, L.; *Hensler, D.; Lemley, M.; McConnell, M.; O'Connell, A.; Ouellette, L.; Persily, N.; *Polinsky, A.; Sklansky, D.; Sykes, A.	1	2
8	Penn	Baker, T.; *Burbank, S.; Coglianese, C.; Fisch, J.; Hoffman, D.; *Hovenkamp, H.; Parchomovsky, G.; Roberts, D.; *Robinson, P.; Skeel, D.	8	6
9	Virginia	Cahn, N.; Citron, D.; Duffy, J.; Gulati, G.; *Laycock, D.; Nelson, C.; Prakash, S.; * Schauer, F.; Solum, L.; * White, G.	8	8
9	Vanderbilt	Bressman, L.; Guthrie, C.; King, N.; Rossi, J.; *Rubin, E.; Ruhl, J.B.; Sherry, S.; * Slobogin, C.; Thomas, R.; * Viscusi, W.	17	16
11	UCLA	Bainbridge, S.; Carbado, D.; Crenshaw, K.; Eagly, I.; Kang, J.; Korobkin, R.; Motomura, H.; Raustiala, K.; Volokh, E.; Winkler, A.	15	14
12	Duke	Adler, M.; Blocher, J.; *Cox, J.; Garrett, B.; Helfer, L.; Lemos, M.; Rai, A.; *Schwarcz, S.; Siegel, N.; Young, E.	12	10
13	Michigan	Avi-Yonah, R.; Bagenstos, S.; Crane, D.; Eisenberg, R.; Litman, J.; *MacKinnon, C.; Primus, R.; Pritchard, A.; Schlanger, M.; *Schneider, C.	8	10
14	UC-Irvine	Burk, D.; Fleischer, V.; Goodwin, M.; Hasen, R.; Leslie, C.; *Menkel-Meadow, C.; Moran, R.; Reese, R.; Shaffer, G.; Simons, K.	19	35
15	Northwestern	* Allen, R.; Black, B.; Calabresi, S.; Dana, D.; * Diamond, S.; Kang, M.; Koppelman, A.; McGinnis, J.; Pfander, J.; *Redish, M.; Schwartz, D.	12	12
15	Cornell	Blume, J.; *Clermont, K.; Dorf, M.; Grimmelmann, J.; *Hans, V.; Heise, M.; Johnson, S.; Ohlin, J.; Rachlinski, J.; Sherwin, E.; Tebbe, N.	11	13
17	Georgetown	Barnett, R.; Butler, P.; Cohen, J.; *Gostin, L.; Katyal, N.; * Langevoort, D.; Levitin, A.; * Luban, D.; Ohm, P.; * Thompson, R.; West, R.	12	15
18	George Washington	Abramowicz, M.; Braman, D.; Colby, T.; Glicksman, R.; Kovacic, W.; Lee, C.; Murphy, S.; *Pierce, R.; Rosen, J.; Solove, D.	23	27
18	Texas	* Bone, R.; Chesney, R.; Forbath, W.; Golden, J.; * Levinson, S.; *McGarity, T.; * Sager, L.; Spence, D.; Vladeck, S.; Wagner, W.	15	16
18	Minnesota	Carbone, J.; Cotter, T.; Hickman, K.; Hill, C.; Klass, A.; *Kritzer, H.; McDonnell, B.; Painter, R.; Schwarcz, D.; *Tonry, M.	19	22
21	Washington University	*Appleton, S.; Epstein, L.; Inazu, J.; *Joy, P.; Kim, P.; Kuehn, R.; *Levin, R.; Richards, N.; *Seligman, J.; Tamanaha, B.	18	16
22	UC-Davis	Bhagwat, A.; Chin, G.; Dodge, W.; Horton, D.; Joh, E.; Johnson, K.; Joslin, C.; Lee, P.; Pruitt, L.; Shanske, D.	23	35
23	George Mason	Bernstein, D.; Butler, H.; Garoupa, N.; Kobayashi, B.; Kontorovich, E.; Mossoff, A.; *Muris, T.; Somin, I.; Wright, J.; Zywicki, T.	64	41
23	Fordham	*Brudney, J.; Capers, B.; Davidson, N.; Green, B.; Griffith, S.; Huntington, C.; Leib, E.; Pearce, R.; Pfaff, J.; Zipursky, B.	28	35
23	Boston University	*Annas, G.; Beermann, J.; Fleming, J.; Gordon, W.; Hylton, K.; Lawson, G.; Maclin, T.; McClain, L.; Meurer, M.; Onwuachi-Willig, A.;	23	20
23	St. Thomas (MN)	Berg, T.; *Hamilton, N.; *Johnson, L.; Kaal, W.; Nichols, J.; Organ, J.; Osler, M.; Paulsen, M.; Sisk, G.; Vischer, R.	141	126
27	Arizona	Bambauer, D.; Bambauer, J.; Bublick, E.; Coan, A.; Engel, K.; Massaro, T.; Miller, M.; Orbach, B.; Puig, S.; Tsosie, R.; *Williams, R.	40	46
27	William & Mary	Bellin, J.; Bruhl, A.; Criddle, E.; Devins, N.; Gershowitz, A.; Ibrahim, D.; Larsen, A.; *Marcus, P.; Oman, N.; Spencer, A.; Zick, T.	28	35
29	USC	Barnett, J.; Barry, J.; Craig, R.; Estrich, S.; Guzman, A.; Klerman, D.; McCaffery, E.; Rasmussen, R.; Roithmayr, D.; Simkovic, M.; Simon, D.; Sokol, D.	19	19
30	San Diego	*Alexander, L.; Bell, A.; Dripps, D.; Hirsch, A.; Lobel, O.; Ramsey, M.; Rappaport, M.; Schapiro, R.; Sichelman, T.; Smith, S.;	56	86
31	Notre Dame	Alford, R.; Bellia, A.; Bray, S.; Cushman, B.; Garnett, R.; Kozel, R.; Miller, P.; *Newton, N.; O'Connell, M.; Pojanowski, J.; Tidmarsh, J.	23	22
31	Illinois	Amar, V.; *Finkin, M.; Heald, P.; Kesan, J.; Lawless, R.; Mazzone, J.; *Moore, M.; Robbennolt, J.; Thomas, S.; Wilson, R.	40	29
33	Cardozo	Buccafusco, C.; Gilles, M.; Herz, M.; Markowitz, P.; Reinert, A.; *Rosenfeld, M.; *Scheck, B.; Sebok, A.; Sterk, S.; *Zelinsky, E.	52	53
33	Brooklyn	Araiza, W.; Baer, M.; Bernstein, A.; Gold, A.; Janger, E.; *Karmel, R.; Pasquale, F.; Ristroph, A.; *Schneider, E.; Simonson, J.; Solan, L.	64	81
33	Colorado	Anaya, S.; Carpenter, K.; Gerding, E.; Gruber, A.; Huang, P.; Kaminski, M.; Krakoff, S.; *Mueller, C.; Norton, H.; Peppet, S.; Schlag, P.; Schwartz, A.; Surden, H.	40	48
36	Utah	Adler, R.; Anghie, A.; Baughman, S.; Cassell, P.; Contreras, J.; *Francis, L.; Jones, R.; *Keiter, R.; Peterson, C.; Tokson, M.; Warner, E.	48	43
36	Case Western	Adler, J.; Berg, J.; Hill, B.; Hoffman, S.; Korsmo, C.; Ku, R.; Nard, C.; Perzanowski, A.; Robertson, C.; Scharf, M.	73	72
36	North Carolina	Ardia, D.; *Conley, J.; Coyle, J.; Gerhardt, M.; *Hazen, T.; Hessick, C.; Hessick, F.; Jacoby, M.; *Marshall, W.; Nichol, G.; Papandrea, M.	23	24
36	Emory	Dudziak, M.; *Fineman, M.; Freer, R.; Holbrook, T.; Hutchinson, D.; Nash, J.; *Perry, M.; Shepherd, J.; Volokh, A.; Witte, J.	19	29
40	Kansas	Bhala, R.; Drahozal, C.; Harper Ho, V.; Hoeflich, M.; Levy, R.; Mulligan, L.; Outka, U.; Stacy, T.; Torrance, A.; Ware, S.; Yung, C.	64	70
40	UC-Hastings	Depoorter, B.; Dodson, S.; Faigman, D.; Feldman, R.; *Marcus, R.; Mattei, U.; Owen, D.; Price, Z.; Schiller, R.; Williams, J.	40	50
40	Chicago-Kent	Baker, K.; Dinwoodie, G.; Katz, D.; Kim, N.; Krent, H.; Lee, E.; Marder, N.; Reilly, G.; Rosen, M.; Schmidt, C.	73	91
43	Ohio State	Akbar, A.; Berman, D.; Chow, D.; Cole, S.; Colker, R.; Davies, L.; Foley, E.; Hernández, C.; Simmons, R.; Walker, C.	32	40
43	Alabama	Andreen, W.; Carroll, J.; * Delgado, R.; Elliott, H.; Grove, T.; Hamill, S.; Hill, J.; Horwitz, P.; Krotoszynski, R.; * Stefancic, J.; Steinman, A.	32	25
43	Georgia	Barnett, K.; Bruner, C.; Burch, E.; Cade, J.; Chapman, N.; Coenen, D.; Cohen, H.; Leonard, E.; Polsky, G.; Rodrigues, U.; Rutledge, P.; *Wells, M.; West, S.	32	27
46	American	Anderson, J.; Daskal, J.; Davis, A.; Fairfax, R.; Ferguson, A.; Franck, S.; Frost, A.; *Robbins, I.; Roberts, J.; Wiley, L.	48	81
46	Florida State	Abbott, F.; Bayern, S.; Hsu, S.; Landau, D.; Logan, W.; O’Hara O’Connor, E.; Ryan, E.; Seidenfeld, M.; Stern, N.; Ziegler, M.	45	48
46	Maryland	*Colbert, D.; Ertman, M.; Gifford, D.; Goodmark, L.; Graber, M.; Gray, D.; Percival, R.; Pinard, M.; Ram, N.; Stearns, M.; Steinzor, R.; Tu, K.	48	50
49	Temple	Arewa, O.; Burris, S.; Dunoff, J.; Gugliuzza, P.; Hollis, D.; Lin, T.; Lipson, J.; Mandel, G.; Ramji-Nogales, J.; Rogers, B.; Spiro, P.	56	53
49	BYU	Asay, C.; Fee, J.; *Fleming, J.; Gedicks, F.; Hurt, C.; Jensen, E.; Nielson, A.; Scharffs, B.; Smith, D.; Sun, L.	52	29
49	Wake Forest	Aiken, J.; Chavis, K.; *Green, M.; Hall, M.; Knox, J.; Palmiter, A.; Parks, G.; *Shapiro, S.; Taylor, M.; Wright, R.	45	41
52	Florida	Arnow-Richman, R.; Bornstein, S.; Calvert, C.; *Dowd, N.; Fenster, M.; Nance, J.; Noah, L.; *Page, W.; Rhee, R.; Rosenbury, L.; Stinneford, J.; Wolf, M.	32	21
52	Arizona State	Bodansky, D.; Fellmeth, A.; Hodge, J.; Luna, E.; Marchant, G.; Miller, R.; Rule, T.; *Saks, M.; Selmi, M.; Weinstein, J.	32	25
52	Iowa	Bohannan, C.; Estin, A.; Gallanis, T.; Grewal, A.; Muller, D.; Pettys, T.; Rantanen, J.; Steinitz, M.; VanderVelde, L.; Washburn, K.; Wing, A.; Yockey, J.	32	29
52	Indiana-Maurer	Dau-Schmidt, K.; Fischman, R.; Fuentes-Rohwer, L.; Gamage, D.; Geyh, C.; Henderson, W.; Janis, M.; Johnsen, D.; Lederman, L.; Nagy, D.; Widiss, D.	32	43
52	Richmond	Cotropia, C.; Eisen, J.; Erickson, J.; Gibson, J.; Lain, C.; Lash, K.; Osenga, K.; Perdue, W.; *Tobias, C.; Walsh, K.	56	53
57	Missouri	Bowman, F.; Crouch, D.; English, D.; Gely, R.; Lambert, T.; Lidsky, L.; Lietzan, E.; Oliveri, R.; Reuben, R.; Schmitz, A.; Wells, C.	83	60
57	San Francisco	Bazelon, L.; Davis, J.; Freiwald, S.; Green, T.; *Hing, B.; Iglesias, T.; Kaswan, A.; Leo, R.; Ontiveros, M.; Travis, M.	127	147-193
59	Boston College	Bilder, M.; Cassidy, R.; Greenfield, K.; Kanstroom, D.; Liu, J.; Madoff, R.; McCoy, P.; Oei, S.; Olson, D.; Repetti, J.; Ring, D.; Yen, A.	28	29
59	UNLV	Cooper, F.; Griffin, L.; Kagan, M.; Main, T.; McGinley, A.; Orentlicher, D.; Rapoport, N.; Stanchi, K.; Stempel, J.; Sternlight, J.	64	60
59	Wisconsin	Brito, T.; Findley, K.; Huneeus, A.; Klingele, C.; Klug, H.; Rogers, J.; Schwartz, D.; Seifter, M.; Tokaji, D.; Yackee, J.	28	29
59	Pittsburgh	Brake, D.; Brand, R.; Carter, W.; *Chew, P.; Crossley, M.; Harris, D.; Infanti, A.; *Lobel, J.; Madison, M.; Wildermuth, A.	64	67
63	Santa Clara	*Cain, P.; Chien, C.; *Glancy, D.; Goldman, E.; Gulasekaram, P.; Kloppenberg, L.; Love, B.; Oberman, M.; Ochoa, T.; Sloss, D.; Spitko, E.; Yosifon, D.	73	126
63	SMU	Carpenter, D.; Colangelo, A.; Coleman, J.; Cortez, N.; Grossman, J.; Hayden, G.; Ryan, M.; *Steinberg, M.; Taylor, D.; Thornburg, E.; Turner, J.	64	52
63	Hofstra	Baruch Bush, R.; Burke, A.; Colombo, R.; *Dolgin, J.; Freedman, E.; Greenwood, D.; Ku, J.; Manta, I.; Neumann, R.; *Yaroshefsky, E.	107	119
63	Northeastern	* Baker, B.; Davis, M.; Dyal-Chand, R.; Hartzog, W.; * Klare, K.; Medwed, D.; Parmet, W.; Rosenbloom, R.; Waldman, A.; *Williams, P.	73	67
63	Loyola-LA	Aprill, E.; Hayden, P.; Hughes, J.; Levenson, L.; Levitt, J.; Miller, E.; Petherbridge, L.; Romano, C.; Willis, L.; Zimmerman, A.	56	72
63	Pepperdine	Anderson, R.; Caldwell, H.; Caron, P.; Childress, D.; Han, D.; Helfand, M.; McDonald, B.; McNeal, G.; Pushaw, R.; Stipanowich, T.; Weston, M.	64	46

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Have Universities Been Meeting Their Legal Obligations To High-Risk Faculty During The Pandemic?

Gary J. Simson, Mark L. Jones, Cathren Page & Suzianne D. Painter-Thorne (Mercer), It's Alright, Ma, It's Life and Life Only: Have Universities Been Meeting Their Legal Obligations to High-Risk Faculty During the Pandemic?, 48 Pepp. L. Rev. 649 (2021):

Even those universities most firmly committed to returning to in-person instruction in fall semester 2020 recognized that for health reasons some exceptions would need to be made. The CDC had identified two groups—people age sixty-five and over, and people with certain medical conditions—as persons “at increased risk of severe illness from COVID-19,” and it had spelled out various special precautions they should take to avoid contracting the virus. Given the CDC’s unique stature, universities very reasonably could have been expected to grant exceptions to faculty falling into either group, but that’s not what many universities did.

We argue that, properly understood, four separate legal sources required universities to exempt high-risk faculty in the past academic year from any in-person teaching requirement.

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University Of Wisconsin Fires Professor For Not Wearing Mask In Class; Other Professors Quit Over Mask Mandates

Wisconsin State Journal, UW-Stout Professor Fired For Not Wearing Mask on Campus:

The University of Wisconsin System Board of Regents last month fired a UW-Stout engineering professor for failing to wear a mask while on campus last year, according to documents obtained by the Wisconsin State Journal.

A disciplinary investigation file released this week shows Regents on July 8 voted unanimously to adopt an order of dismissal for UW-Stout engineering professor Pavel Bizyukov because he didn’t wear a mask in the classroom on Sept. 9, 2020, as required by UW-Stout and the board, and because he did not follow a process to obtain an exception to the mask requirement.

Firing a professor is rare in the UW System, where it’s happened only six other times since 2010, a Wisconsin State Journal review of records found.

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Ohio Northern Seeks To Hire An Entry Level Tax Prof

Hiring Announcement: Ohio Northern University:

Ohio Northern University (located in northwestern Ohio) looks to hire three entry-level tenure-track faculty members to begin teaching in 2022. The first position is Tax; this person will be expected to teach a full load of Tax courses. The second position is Property; this person is expected to teach two semesters of Property, one semester of Trusts and Estates, and a fourth course to be negotiated with the Dean. The third position is Externship Coordinator / Family Law; this person will coordinate student externships and teach two courses per year, such as Family Law and Juvenile Law. Interested applicants should reach out to Rick Bales, Chair, Personnel Committee.

Law schools looking to hire Tax Profs to start in the 2022-23 academic year:

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Thomas: Taxing Nudges

Kathleen DeLaney Thomas (North Carolina; Google Scholar), Taxing Nudges, 107 Va. L. Rev. 571 (2021): 

Governments are increasingly turning to behavioral economics to inform policy design in areas like health care, the environment, and financial decision-making. Research shows that small behavioral interventions, referred to as “nudges,” often produce significant responses at a low cost. The theory behind nudges is that, rather than mandating certain behaviors or providing costly economic subsidies, modest initiatives may “nudge” individuals to choose desirable outcomes by appealing to their behavioral preferences. For example, automatically enrolling workers into savings plans as a default rather than requiring them to actively sign up has dramatically increased enrollment in such plans. Similarly, allowing individuals to earn “wellness points” from attendance at a gym, redeemable at various retail establishments, may improve exercise habits.

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Criminal Deterrence: A Review Of The Missing Literature

Alex Raskolnikov (Columbia), Criminal Deterrence: A Review of the Missing Literature, 28 Sup. Ct. Econ. Rev. 1 (2020):

This review of the criminal deterrence literature focuses on the questions that are largely missing from many recent excellent and comprehensive reviews of that literature and even from the literature itself. By “missing” I mean, first, questions that criminal deterrence scholars have ignored either completely or to a large extent. These questions range from fundamental (the distributional analysis of the criminal justice system) to those hidden in plain sight (economic analysis of misdemeanors), to those that are well-known yet mostly overlooked (the role of positive incentives, offender’s mental state, and celerity of punishment). Second, I use “missing” to refer to the areas where substantial relevant knowledge exists but is largely disregarded within the criminal deterrence research program. The empirical analysis of environmental and tax compliance is a stark example. Finally, I stretch “missing” to describe topics that have been both studied and reviewed but where substantial challenges remain. These include the theoretical explanation for the role of offense history, the proper accounting for the offender’s gains, the estimation of the costs of various crimes, and the cost-benefit analysis of crime-reduction policies.

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