Death Of Stephen Lind (UC Law SF)

Morris Ratner (Provost & Academic Dean), Remembering UC Law SF Emeritus Professor of Stephen A. Lind:

UC Law SF recognizes the recent and unexpected passing of a giant in the tax law field, Steve Lind, who joined the faculty in 1975 and helped build the nationally recognized tax bench that exists to this day.

“Generations of UC Law SF students found their calling in tax law thanks to Steve’s inspirational teaching and example,” Chancellor & Dean David Faigman said.

For more than fifty years, students across the country learned tax law from textbooks Steve co-authored. Those books and their emphasis on the problem method transformed tax pedagogy.

“I will miss Steve, as will so many others, but I know Steve’s legacy will live on through the UC Law SF tax program he helped to create, through the thousands of students that he taught and that learned from his books, and through all of us whose lives are richer because Steve was in them,” said Senior Director of the UC Law SF Center on Tax Law and Professor of Law Heather Field.

Steve Lind generously endowed the Stephen A. Lind Professorship, and Professor Field is the inaugural holder of that chair.

Obituary, Stephen A. Lind (1941 - 2024):

Heaven shines brighter today. Stephen ("Steve") Anderson Lind passed away on February 15, in Austin, Texas. He was visiting his two grand nephews on the way to Florida to give a speech honoring the 50th anniversary of the University of Florida graduate tax program, which he helped to found. Steve was surrounded by his loving family: his niece Elisabeth Lind Dick and her sons Jamie Christen and Casey James. He was a resident of Palm Springs and Lake Tahoe, CA.

Steve was born in Petaluma, CA, to Christen Nissen Lind and Elizabeth Anderson Lind, both of whom passed away while Steve was still a teenager, leaving him to be raised by his grandmother, Josephine B. Gwinn, aka "Granny." ...

Steve graduated from Petaluma High School, received his B.A. and J.D. degrees from the University of California, Berkeley, and earned his LL.M. in Taxation from New York University.

Steve served as a law professor at the University of San Francisco, Emeritus Distinguished Professor of Law at UC Law SF (formerly UC Hastings), and at the University of Florida in both its J.D. and LL.M. (taxation) programs. In his honor, the University of Florida has established the Stephen A. Lind Eminent Scholar Chair in Federal Taxation. He was devoted to his students, who said he was always well prepared. If any student came unprepared to class, Steve had an infectious, humorous way of needling that delivered the message, but endeared him to both victim and class.

Many students claimed that Steve and his class made a difference in their career trajectory; as a result, they became tax attorneys. Most of his career, he rose early to work on the numerous tax textbooks and treatises that he co-authored. His casebooks were used as standard texts by over 100 of the best law schools and his treatises are found in over 350 libraries throughout the US and abroad. ...

Information regarding services will be forthcoming. In his memory, donations can be made to the Stephen A. Lind Eminent Scholar Chair in Federal Taxation through the University of Florida Foundation, The Tahoe Fund, or the UC San Diego Alzheimer's Research Fund number K3694-John M. (Jack) McKeown Alzheimer's Disease Award.