From Briefs To Bytes: How Generative AI Is Transforming Legal Writing And Practice

Joe Regalia (UNLV), From Briefs to Bytes: How Generative AI is Transforming Legal Writing and Practice, 59 Tulsa L. Rev. 193 (2024): 

ChatGPT is having a moment in the legal field. And for good reason: Generative artificial intelligence (“AI”) was already disrupting the practice of law before OpenAI’s new chatbot came on the scene. But ChatGPT marks a new era. The brain behind OpenAI’s latest AI contains up to a trillion artificial neurons and was trained on hundreds of billions of pieces of text gathered on the web. All that data makes for the smartest AI ever.

But what’s more important is that all that computational muscle is aimed at things lawyers do every day: (1) Understanding complex concepts, (2) analyzing convoluted language, and (3) conveying that understanding effectively in writing. The result is technology that can understand text, parse it for insights, and apply those insights with striking competence—just like lawyers do. And now, these tools are multi-modal: They can see, hear, and speak. They can carry out complex tasks and integrate with all the other technology lawyers use. They can program new software, analyze legal data, and create stunning visuals for the courtroom. And new features and functions and integrations are released daily. Perhaps most exciting (and scary): Generative AI (“GAI”) greatly enhances the evolution of legal technology itself. In other words, GAI is rapidly increasing the speed at which we develop new technology relevant to legal practice. If experts are right, we are on the cusp of a legal technology revolution.

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NIMBY Charities

Lauren Rogal (Vanderbilt), NIMBY Charities, 56 Conn. L. Rev. 749 (2024): 

Neighborhood organizations often advocate for land use policies and decisions that curtail development and entry into the neighborhood. This “not in my backyard” (NIMBY) disposition echoes a long history of exclusionary activity by these organizations and reflects a broader tendency to operate in furtherance of property values and other private interests. Due to substantive and procedural deficiencies in federal tax policy, these organizations often operate as 501(c)(3) tax-exempt charities, a status rightly reserved for organizations that generate broad public benefits. 

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ABA Legal Ed Council Summary Of Actions Taken At August 16 Meeting

Following up on my previous posts:

• In Response To Criticism, ABA Legal Ed Council Changes Proposed Accreditation Standards On Diversity, Rights Of Non-Tenure-Track Faculty (Aug. 19, 2024)
• Legal Ed Council Sends Proposed Accreditation Standards On Learning Outcomes, Assessment, And 1L Faculty To ABA House Of Delegates (Aug. 20, 2024)

Summary of actions of the section’s Council at its public meeting Aug. 16, 2024:

The Council of the ABA Section of Legal Education and Admissions to the Bar met both virtually and in person in Chicago, Illinois, on Aug. 16, to consider matters on its agenda including recommendations, reports, and other issues. The Council took the following actions:

• Approved for notice and comment proposed recommendations from the Standards Committee for revisions of Standards 206 and 405.

The proposed change for Standard 206 (a) focuses on “access to the study of law and entry into the legal profession” for all qualified aspiring lawyers. The proposed change eliminates any reference to student identities, such as race or nationality, and is intended to be consistent with the June 2023 decision by the U.S. Supreme Court barring race-conscious admissions policies in colleges and universities. Standard 206 (b) focuses on creating and maintaining a supportive learning environment for all students in part by providing access to faculty and staff positions to all persons.

The recommendation for a revised version of Standard 405 expands job security to additional faculty members in the law school community to secure academic freedom and attract and retain a competent faculty. The revisions add more detail and clarification as to what law schools are required to provide to all full-time faculty members in terms of tenure or security of position reasonably similar to tenure, governance rights, and non-compensatory perquisites. An additional requirement is that the director or supervisor of the academic success, bar preparation, field placement, and legal writing programs have tenure or a form of security of position reasonably similar to tenure.

• Approved proposed recommendations from the Standards Committee for revisions of Standards 204, 301, 302, 314, 315 and 403 that relate to learning outcomes. The proposal will now be sent to the ABA House of Delegates, which meets next in February 2025.

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Bogdanski: Supreme Court's Tax Decisions (Moore, Estate Of Connelly) Undercut By Non-Tax Decisions (Loper Bright, Cover Post, Jarkesy)

Jack Bogdanski (Lewis & Clark), After the Sigh, a Gasp:

I wrote back in June about how relieved some of us were that the U.S. Supreme Court decided two tax cases this term in favor of the IRS. To have ruled in favor of the taxpayers in either of the cases would have wreaked havoc on the federal tax system.

But as the summer has worn on, a few other decisions that the Court rendered have come to us tax types' attention, and it appears they are going to make trouble for the tax system. Indeed, they're going to create a fair amount of tsuris for the entire federal government of which the tax system is a part.

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Fellowships For Aspiring Law Professors (Updated 2024-25 Edition)

For practitioners and others contemplating joining the law professor ranks, many law schools offer wonderful opportunities to transition into the legal academy with one- or two-year fellowships which allow you to enter the AALS Faculty Recruitment Conference (the "meat market") with published scholarship (and in most cases teaching experience) under your belt. Below is an updated list of the law schools with fellowship and VAP programs. Please contact me with any corrections or additions.

General Programs:

	Program Name
Boston College	Drinan Scholars Program
BYU	Visiting Fellowship Program
Cardozo	Harold A. Stevens Visiting Assistant Professor of Law
Chicago	Earl B. Dickerson Fellowship
Chicago	Harry A. Bigelow Teaching Fellowships
Chicago-Kent	Visiting Assistant Professor Program
Columbia	Academic Fellows Program
Connecticut	Stuart F. Smith Teaching Fellowship
Connecticut	Visiting Scholars Program
Cornell	Visiting Assistant Professorships
Duke	Visiting Assistant Professor Program
Federalist Society	Faculty Division Olin-Searle-Smith-Darling Research Fellowship in Law (Full-Time)
Federalist Society	Faculty Division Clinical Fellowship in Law (Full-Times)
Federalist Society	Faculty Division Research Fellowship (Part-Time)
Georgetown	Georgetown Law Research Fellowship
Harvard	Climenko Fellowship
Harvard	Rappaport Fellowship
Illinois	Illinois Academic Fellowship Program
Indiana-McKinney	Future Faculty Visiting Assistant Fellowship
Iowa	Iowa Law Faculty Fellowship
Loyola-New Orleans	Westerfield Fellows Program
Maryland	Murray Fellows
Michigan	Michigan Faculty Fellows Program (VAP)
Michigan	Michigan Society of Fellows Program
Mississippi	Visiting Assistant Professor
Northwestern	Marti Family Fellowship Visiting Assistant Professor
NYU	Furman Academic Fellowship Program
NYU	Acting Assistant Professor
Pennsylvania	The George Sharswood Fellowship
Pepperdine	Ken Starr Faculty Fellowship
South Texas	Visiting Assistant Professor
Stetson	Bruce R. Jacob Visiting Assistant Professor
Texas	Texas Law Academic Fellowships
Tulane	Forrester Fellowships
UC-Hastings	Visiting Foreign Scholars Program
Washington	Visiting Scholars Program
Wisconsin	The Hastie Fellowship Program

Subject Specific Programs:

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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, 2024) 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)	235,201	1	Jonathan Choi (USC)	22,115
2	Daniel Hemel (NYU)	135,034	2	Amy Monahan (Minnesota)	12,679
3	David Gamage (Missouri-Columbia)	129,675	3	Reuven Avi-Yonah (Michigan)	12,008
4	Dan Shaviro (NYU)	129,413	4	Zachary Liscow (Yale)	5,831
5	Lily Batchelder (NYU)	128,564	5	Kristin Hickman (Minnesota)	5,638
6	Darien Shanske (UC-Davis)	121,656	6	David Gamage (Missouri-Columbia)	4,323
7	David Kamin (NYU)	115,341	7	Daniel Hemel (NYU)	4,175
8	Cliff Fleming (BYU)	109,263	8	Bridget Crawford (Pace)	4,172
9	Manoj Viswanathan (UC-SF)	105,340	9	Kim Clausing (UCLA)	3,809
10	Ari Glogower (Northwestern)	105,084	10	Darien Shanske (UC-Davis)	3,720
11	Rebecca Kysar (Fordham)	104,670	11	D. Dharmapala (UC-Berkeley)	3,504
12	D. Dharmapala (UC-Berkeley)	54,562	12	Brad Borden (Brooklyn)	3,422
13	Michael Simkovic (USC)	50,775	13	Louis Kaplow (Harvard)	3,225
14	Louis Kaplow (Harvard)	44,151	14	Robert Sitkoff (Harvard)	3,052
15	Paul Caron (Pepperdine)	42,434	15	Jordan Barry (USC)	2,942
16	Bridget Crawford (Pace)	41,078	16	Michael Simkovic (USC)	2,712
17	Jonathan Choi (USC)	40,849	17	David Weisbach (Chicago)	2,644
18	Richard Ainsworth (Boston Univ.)	40,412	18	Ruth Mason (Virginia)	2,601
19	Robert Sitkoff (Harvard)	35,738	19	Kyle Rozema (Northwestern)	2,585
20	Brad Borden (Brooklyn)	34,536	20	Brian Galle (Georgetown)	2,456
21	Amy Monahan (Minnesota)	33,750	21	John Brooks (Fordham)	2,240
22	Ruth Mason (Virginia)	32,904	22	Ellen Aprill (Loyola-L.A.)	2,234
23	Vic Fleischer (UC-Irvine)	31,261	23	Young Ran (Christine) Kim (Cardozo)	2,221
24	Kim Clausing (UCLA)	30,927	24	Richard Ainsworth (Boston Univ.)	2,151
25	Ed Kleinbard (USC)	30,422	25	Dan Shaviro (NYU)	2,089

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The History Of American Student-Edited International Law Journals

Harlan Grant Cohen (Fordham; Google Scholar), A Short History of the Early History of American Student-Edited International Law Journals, 64 Va. J. Int'l L. 357 (2024):

While to some the “invisible college of international lawyers” may invoke images of open spaces between buildings and airy quads, to others the picture will be something much more clubbish and cloistered. And at least at their start, American student-edited international law journals decidedly resembled the latter. The Harvard International Law Journal began as the Bulletin of the Harvard International Law Club. Its first issue in 1959 detailed the club’s lectures and events, including a sherry party and membership growth from thirteen to thirty-three. “The principal function of the Club [was] the sponsorship of talks both by men actively engaged in the field of international law and by graduate students of the Harvard Law School.” (Its first two editors were future Boston College Law Professor Charles Baron and Wilmot Reed Hastings, a future Nixon administration lawyer whose son would co-found Netflix.) 

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Update: Florida Tax Review Symposium On Moore v. United States

Following up on my previous post, Florida Tax Review Call For Papers: Symposium On Moore v. United States:  From David Hasen (Florida; Google Scholar):

I bring you a brief update on our upcoming symposium on Moore v. U.S.

The symposium will take place on Friday, Nov. 1, and Saturday, Nov. 2, 2024. We will also have an informal conference dinner on Thursday, Oct. 31. Kindly note the following:

1. The deadline for paper submissions has been extended to September 15.
2. We have expanded the scope of the symposium to include papers on Loper Bright and Corner Post, two decisions also handed down last term that have significant implications for the federal tax system. Papers focusing on either (or both) of these cases may be on any topic as long as it bears on some aspect of the federal tax system.

Submissions need not be in final form, but they should be well developed. They should not exceed 20,000 words in length (though we may make exceptions); 12,000 to 15,000 words preferred.

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Will AI Write California's Bar Exam?

The Recorder, Will AI Write California's Future Bar Exams?:

California’s state bar is asking those who took the July bar exam for their views on artificial intelligence, suggesting the fast-emerging technology could be used in crafting future tests.

Along with typical questions about exam-takers’ experiences with testing centers and test-related materials, a 21-page survey recently sent to applicants also asked for their views on AI’s potential use in all facets of the twice-yearly licensing exam.

“There are a variety of new artificial intelligence (AI) tools created to aid in exam development, grading, and proctoring,” the survey question stated. “To what extent do you agree that the following AI tools can emulate human development, proctoring, and grading of the bar exam?”

Survey-takers were then asked for their thoughts on AI’s use to “help develop new bar exam questions,” to “proctor the bar exam by flagging potential violations for review” and “to help grade bar exam essays.” ...

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Kaplan: Analyzing The New Planning Opportunities In SECURE 2.0 For Retirement Plan Participants

Richard L. Kaplan (Illinois; Google Scholar), Analyzing the New Planning Opportunities in SECURE 2.0 for Retirement Plan Participants, 32 Elder L.J. 93 (2024):

This article examines and analyzes six major changes enacted by the SECURE 2.0 Act of 2022 pertaining to current plan participants in retirement plans. Those changes relate to: (1) increased contribution limits for 60-year-old employees, (2) longevity annuities, (3) charitable gift annuities, (4) long-term care insurance, (5) unused funds in section 529 college savings plans, and (6) emergency withdrawals. These provisions vary considerably in their connection to the principal purpose of employer-provided retirement plans – namely, to finance the retirement of affected employees. 

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Legal Ed Council Sends Proposed Accreditation Standards On Learning Outcomes, Assessment, And 1L Faculty To ABA House Of Delegates

Reuters, Law School Courses to Become More Uniform Under New ABA Accreditation Rule:

Law schools will soon be required to set “minimum learning outcomes” for every class they offer and ensure those outcomes are the same across all sections of required courses.

The American Bar Association’s Council of the Section of Legal Education and Admissions to the Bar on Friday adopted a series of changes, opens new tab to its student learning outcomes standards, aiming to clarify law schools’ obligations. The changes also seek to ensure more conformity across required classes at law schools that have more than one section each term such as Contracts or Torts and are usually taught by more than one professor.

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Washington & Lee Seeks To Hire An Entry Level Or Lateral Tax Prof

Washington & Lee Law, Professor of Law (Assistant or Associate): 

The Washington and Lee University School of Law warmly invites applications for up to two tenure-track or tenured faculty positions that will begin on July 1, 2025. We are excited to advance our trajectory of outstanding scholarship and teaching with these new hires. A central aspect of the mission of our Law School is to promote a diverse, equitable, and collaborative intellectual community. To do so, we continually strive to foster an inclusive campus community that recognizes the value of all persons regardless of identity. In keeping with the University’s Strategic Plan, we welcome applications from candidates belonging to communities traditionally underrepresented in the legal academy. ...

Applicants should submit the following materials through Interfolio at apply.interfolio.com/152352: (1) a cover letter describing their interest in the position; and (2) a current curriculum vitae, including references. Please address these materials to Chris Seaman, Chair, Faculty Doctrinal Appointments Committee.

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NY Times: Harvard Names Conservative Law School Dean John Manning University Provost

New York Times, Harvard Names Conservative Legal Scholar as Permanent Provost:

Harvard University appointed on Thursday a conservative legal scholar as provost, the university’s second-highest leadership position. The move comes as Harvard faces a congressional investigation into campus antisemitism while bracing for a new season of student protests against the Israel-Hamas war.

In announcing John F. Manning as the new permanent provost, Harvard’s president, Alan M. Garber, described him as “the right person for the moment in which we find ourselves,” adding that he had demonstrated “both humility and wisdom” in his current role.

Mr. Manning has been the university’s interim provost since March. He and Dr. Garber, who was named as president this month, have longstanding ties with Harvard, beginning at the school as undergraduates. Their appointments appear to be an attempt at stability after Claudine Gay resigned as president in January, amid heavy criticism over her handling of pro-Palestinian protests and accusations of antisemitism on campus. ...

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Gamage & Glogower: The Policy And Politics Of Alternative Minimum Taxes

David Gamage (Missouri-Columbia; Google Scholar) & Ari Glogower (Northwestern; Google Scholar), The Policy and Politics of Alternative Minimum Taxes, 77 Nat’l Tax J. 467 (2024):

This essay contributes to a literature offering qualified justifications for Alternative Minimum Tax (AMT) structures. We conclude that there is a narrow case for justifying AMTs even from the social planner perspective and that the proposed Billionaire’s Minimum Income Tax satisfies that narrow case. Next, incorporating governance collective action problems and electoral political constraints, we conclude that these considerations support a broader case for justifying AMTs that potentially also supports both preference-disallowance AMTs and the new corporate alternative minimum tax enacted in 2022.

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Legal Ed News Roundup

• ABA Journal, Racial Disparities In Law School Applicants Remain, Accesslex Institute Says
• Atlanta Journal-Constitution, Law School Has Become Unaffordable. At UGA, We Are Trying to Change That
• Chicago Sun-Times, NYU Law School Sweethearts Wed in Beach Ceremony
• Daily Business Review, Enrollment Cliff: Part Deux
• Daily Report, Q&A: UGA Law School Dean Peter 'Bo' Rutledge on His Transition Back to Private Practice
• Rick Garnett (Notre Dame), Changes to Criminal Law Course (Advice Welcome!)
• High Point University Blog, New Law School Welcomes Inaugural Class with Professionalism Ceremony
• Jacksonville Daily Record, Classes Begin at New Jacksonville University College of Law Campus Downtown

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Issues Concerning Section 2056(d) Of The Tax Code

M. Chalmers Middleton II (Merline & Meacham), Issues Concerning Section 2056(d) of the Tax Code, 75 S.C. L. Rev. 391 (2023):

The Estate Tax Marital Deduction currently provides an unlimited deduction against estate taxes for any bequest to a surviving spouse. However, Section 2056(d) disallows the use of this deduction when the surviving spouse is not a United States citizen. This is unless the bequest is put into a Qualified Domestic Trust for the benefit of the surviving foreign spouse. 

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In Response To Criticism, ABA Legal Ed Council Changes Proposed Accreditation Standards On Diversity, Rights Of Non-Tenure-Track Faculty

ABA Journal, Legal Ed Council Broadens Proposed Accreditation Standard Addressing Diversity:

The council of the ABA Section of Legal Education and Admissions to the Bar has proposed reframing a contentious law school accreditation standard that encourages diversity to instead focus on achieving “access to legal education and the profession” for all qualified aspiring lawyers.

The suggested changes to Standard 206, prompted by the need to align the standards with the U.S. Supreme Court’s 2023 decision eliminating race-based admissions, will be sent out for notice and comment. The council approved the move at its Aug. 16 quarterly meeting in Chicago. ...

The latest proposed changes make clear that the standard does not require law schools to take into account race or any other identity characteristics in making admissions decisions. ...

Standard 206, which under the proposal would be renamed “Access to Legal Education and the Profession” instead of “Diversity and Inclusion,” has become a lightning rod. Attorneys general of 21 conservative states, led by Tennessee Attorney General and Reporter Jonathan Skrmetti, urged the council in a June letter to rework previous suggested changes to Standard 206 to comply with the Supreme Court’s ruling.

In response, a group of 19 AGs from liberal states, led by Illinois Attorney General Kwame Raoul, fired back, signing a letter calling on the American Bar Association, Fortune 100 CEOs and other organizations to retain “their commitment to diversity, equity and inclusion.”

ABA Legal Ed Council, REVISED Memorandum on Recommended Revisions for Notice and Comment: Standard 206 and 405 (Aug. 15, 2024):

On August 15, 2024, the Standards Committee met and now proposes new language for Standard 206(b), Option 2 as well as a new Interpretation 206-3 that would apply if Option 2 is selected. For ease in finding these new sections, they have been highlighted in yellow and appear on pages 2-4 of this memo.

There have also been some changes proposed to the Interpretations in Standard 405. Interpretation 405-4 has been deleted since this topic is covered or subsumed by Interpretation 208-3. A new Interpretation 405-4 has been added to create a “safe harbor” provision where security of position “reasonably similar to tenure” is generally satisfied by a five-year presumptively renewable contract. These proposals are highlighted in yellow and appear on pages 7-8. Finally, the Standards Committee notes that the revisions to Standard 405, if adopted, may require extra time for law schools to implement. As such, this Standard will be implemented no earlier than the beginning of the 2026-2027 academic year. With respect to changes in status for persons in positions described here, law schools with Site Visits in the 2025-2026 academic year will report a plan for compliance in the 2025-2026 SEQ.

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Why We Should Care That Tariffs Are Taxes

David Hebert (American Institute for Economic Research), Why We Should Care That Tariffs Are Taxes:

In a recent American Compass article, Michael Lind [Texas] asks “So What If Tariffs Are Taxes?” In doing so, he defends the position of so many on the left and right that tariffs are good economics, good policy, and essential to reverse the damage allegedly caused by zealously pursuing trade liberalization. Unfortunately, he gets both his history and economics wrong. Because of these errors, his policy recommendations are misguided and reflect an antiquated, pre-Adam Smith view of the world that promotes mercantilism, cronyism, and a “beggar thy neighbor” approach to international relations. These policies have been tried before, with the same result each time: the impoverishment of the nation and its people.

Lind’s call for “Sticks, Not Carrots” belies a subtle truth: he believes it is the federal government’s responsibility to make sure that Americans are well-off. This starkly contrasts the historical position of the American Right up until the 2010s, not to mention a core principle of the American Founding: our well-being is primarily our personal responsibility. ...

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Columbia Students Sue Anti-Israel Encampment Organizers, Including Progressive ‘Squad’ Members

Following up on Wednesday's post, Federal Court Issues Injunction Prohibiting UCLA From Allowing Antisemitic Encampments To Block Jewish Students From Areas Of Campus:  National Review,  Columbia Students Sue Anti-Israel Encampment Organizers, Including Progressive ‘Squad’ Members:

Some Columbia University students filed a lawsuit this week against the anti-Israel individuals and organizations which organized the school’s pro-Palestinian encampment last semester, creating what the students called “incredibly hostile environment for all students, but particularly Jewish and Israeli students.”

Students are suing anti-Israel student groups, including Columbia Students for Justice in Palestine, Columbia-Barnard Jewish Voice for Peace, Within Our Lifetime, and Faculty and Staff for Justice in Palestine, as well as progressive “Squad” members, Representatives Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D., N.Y.), Jamaal Bowman (D., N.Y.), and Ilhan Omar (D., Minn.). ...

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TaxProf Blog Weekend Roundup

Saturday:

• Evan Gershkovich, Other Freed Hostages Hit With IRS Tax Penalties For Their Time As Russia's Hostages
• UC-Berkeley Is First Law School To Offer AI-Focused Degree
• This Week's Ten Most Popular TaxProf Blog Posts

Sunday:

• The Top Five New Tax Papers
• Kamala Harris (UC Law SF) Would Be Second Lawyer-President With A Non-T14 Degree; Joe Biden (Syracuse Law) Is The Other
• Not Everything Is Cancel Culture
• Religious Teens Are Happier Than Their Secular Peers — Dramatically So For Religious Conservatives
• The Olympics’ Most Iconic Photo Has A Christian Message

The Olympics’ Most Iconic Photo Has A Christian Message

Christianity Today, The Olympics’ Most Iconic Photo Has a Christian Message:

There’s a hidden Christian message behind what may be the most celebrated image of the 2024 Olympics.

On July 29, in round three of the shortboard surfing competition, Brazil’s Gabriel Medina faced off against Japan’s Kanoa Igarashi, who eliminated Medina in the last Olympics. In his second wave, Medina emerged from a tube exuberant, with both palms open, suggesting that the judges should offer him a 10 for his performance. (Two of the five judges agreed; his final score was 9.9).

Medina then pivoted left, toward the surf, and jumped off his board, raising his right hand and pointing his index finger upward. This was the image that Agence France-Presse photographer Jérôme Brouillet captured.

Brazilian evangelicals recognized the sign immediately.

“It's like he’s saying, ‘It's not me you should be looking at, it’s God. This moment of glory is not mine, but his,’” said João Guilherme Züge, a resident historian of religion at Museu Paranaense, in Curitiba.

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Religious Teens Are Happier Than Their Secular Peers — Dramatically So For Religious Conservatives

Zach Rausch (NYU; Google Scholar), Why Are Religious Teens Happier Than Their Secular Peers?:

Seth Kaplan, an author [Fragile Neighborhoods: Repairing American Society, One Zip Code at a Time (2023)] and lecturer [Johns Hopkins], spent more than two decades traveling the world. He lived or worked in 75 countries before settling down in a small Orthodox Jewish community about an hour north of Washington, D.C. Although he was raised Jewish, Kaplan told me the faith wasn’t a central part of his identity while growing up. In fact, it isn’t even the reason he now lives in an Orthodox community. “I moved here for the lifestyle,” he says.

I laughed. I’ve always been resistant to the idea of living a religious life. It feels constraining, with too many rigid and seemingly arbitrary rules. The idea that someone would move to an Orthodox community for the lifestyle sounded, well, crazy. But as Kaplan explained his story in more detail, it began to make more sense — and it resonated with my research.

I’ve spent much of the last few years as the lead researcher for Jonathan Haidt’s recently published book “The Anxious Generation,” which explains how we’ve inadvertently deprived Gen Z (those born after 1995) of real-world community, independence, and free play, and replaced those things with smartphones and social media, contributing to a precipitous decline in their mental health. Kaplan isn’t part of the generation we’re most concerned about, but as sociologist Robert Putnam observed in his 2001 book “Bowling Alone,” the disintegration of communal life in the United States began in the 1960s as fewer adults attended religious services and civic engagement fell. The introduction of the smartphone and digital life has only exacerbated these existing problems: loneliness, lack of civic engagement, and the erosion of local communities.

But this disintegration of community did not happen as significantly for one subset of Americans: Religious conservatives continued attending faith services, and those adults and teens continued to engage in civic activities like volunteering and youth groups at higher rates than others. It seems that kids from conservative religious communities may have been less likely to lose their community—and free-play-based childhoods. This is the kind of childhood Kaplan wanted for his kids. ...

Kaplan believes, more than anyone I have ever met, in the power of strong, tight-knit communities to solve our personal and social ills. In fact, Kaplan has become one of the world’s leading experts on what makes some societies and communities thrive and others not. He has come to believe that many of the crises we face today — the youth mental health crisis, the loneliness epidemic, the drug overdose crisis, and political polarization — can be traced back to the deterioration of local communities.

The more I have talked with him and members of other religious communities, and the more I have dug into the research, the more I think he might be onto something.

Religion protects young people’s mental health. ...

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Inazu: Not Everything Is Cancel Culture

Dispatch Faith:  Not Everything Is Cancel Culture, by Michael Reneau (The Dispatch) & John Inazu  (Washington University; Google Scholar):

Michael Reneau: A recent Newsweek story proclaiming “Conservative Campuses Are Facing Campus Culture Problems” became a topic of conversation in The Dispatch’s Slack channel last week, and for good reason. For years, it was mostly conservatives complaining (often correctly) about institutions or groups “canceling” those with thom they disagreed. As the Newsweek story highlighted, however, it’s not just the political and cultural left that has a cancel culture problem. “An increasing number of academics are speaking out about Christian colleges, claiming they were forced out of their jobs because of the rising intensity of conservative politics on campuses,” the lead paragraph declared.

It’s true enough. As politics usurps religion as the realm where more and more people are looking for ultimate meaning—a problem Jonah identified on The Remnant earlier this week—drawing hard-and-fast lines around political loyalty rather than theological positions has become more common.

The problem I saw with the Newsweek story, though, was that it didn’t make much of an attempt to help readers understand when the Christian institutions it reported on were drawing prudent boundaries about first-order theological or ontological issues and when they were being petty and fearful. Some of the issues in question require prudential judgment calls (outlining commitments on human sexuality that have obvious implications for belief about human identity, for example). Others, not so much. What I wished had been in the story was the degree to which some of the institutions mentioned made good-faith efforts to wrestle with those questions.

Enter this week’s Dispatch Faith essay from John Inazu, a professor of religion and law at Washington University in St. Louis and the author of Learning to Disagree: The Surprising Path to Navigating Differences with Empathy and Respect. Below, he tries to help institutions and individuals think through what cancel culture is, what it isn’t, and how institutions—especially faith-based ones—can properly define themselves.

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Kamala Harris (UC Law SF) Would Be Second Lawyer-President With A Non-T14 Degree; Joe Biden (Syracuse Law) Is The Other

Law.com, Kamala Harris Would Only Be the Second Lawyer-President With a Non-T14 Law Degree:

If Democratic presidential nominee Vice President Kamala Harris is elected in November, the Oakland, California, native would be only the second lawyer-president to hold a law degree from a university that is not considered a top-14 law school in the U.S. News & World Report Rankings.

After graduating from Howard University, a historically black college in the Washington, D.C., area, with dual degrees in economics and political science in 1986, Harris went on to earn her law degree from the University of California Hastings College of the Law (which was renamed last year to the University of California College of Law, San Francisco) in 1989. ...

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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.

1. [1,467 Downloads]  Of Losing Citizenship, Tropes, and Missed Opportunity, by Laura Snyder (Association of Americans Resident Overseas)
2. [449 Downloads]  Sweeping Changes and an Uncertain Legacy: The Tax Cuts and Jobs Act of 2017, by William Gale (Brookings Institution; Google Scholar), Jeffrey Hoopes (North Carolina; Google Scholar) & Kyle Pomerleau (American Enterprise Institute) (reviewed by Sloan Speck (Colorado; Google Scholar) here)
3. [314 Downloads]  Wealth Taxes Under the Constitution: An Originalist Analysis, by David Schizer (Columbia) & Steven Calabresi (Northwestern) (reviewed by Mirit Eyal-Cohen (Alabama; Google Scholar) here)
4. [214 Downloads]  Shaping Preferences With Pigouvian Taxes, by Gary Lucas, Jr. (Texas A&M; Google Scholar)
5. [175 Downloads]  Nondelegation, Original Meaning, and Early Federal Taxation: A Dialogue With My Critics, by Nicholas Parrillo (Yale)

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

This Week's Ten Most Popular TaxProf Blog Posts

Legal Education: 

1. Chronicle of Higher Education, Federal Court Issues Injunction Prohibiting UCLA From Allowing Antisemitic Encampments To Block Jewish Students From Areas Of Campus
2. Chronicle of Higher Education Op-Ed (Mark Moyar, Hillsdale College), A Conservative Professor On Academe’s Political Conformity
3. Nachman Gutowski (UNLV), Ashley London (Duquesne), Steven Foster (Oklahoma City) & Taylor Israel (Thomas Jefferson), Questioning The Inevitability Of The NextGen Bar Exam
4. Randall Ryder (Minnesota), Effective Law Professor Feedback For Today's Students
5. Kendall Kerew (Georgia State), Using Technology To Promote Well-Being And Foster Professional Identity Formation In The 1L Classroom
6. ABA Journal, Is The National Conference Of Bar Examiners Losing Power?
7. Quinten Steenhuis (Suffolk), AI And Tools For Expanding Access To Justice
8. Reuters, Kamala Harris's Law School Alma Mater Looks For PR Boost From Candidate's Run
9. Law360, Law Prof | Conceptual Artist Brian Frye Takes On The SEC Over NFTs
10. Angela Harris (UC-Davis) & Monika Kashyap (Seattle), Trauma-Informed Pedagogy In Law School

Tax:

1. SSRN, The Top Five New Tax Papers
2. Florida Tax Review, New Issue
3. Jason S. Oh (UCLA) & Andrew Verstein (UCLA), A Theory Of The REIT
4. New York Times, Trump Promises Tax Cuts, Harris Tracks Biden's Tax Increases
5. Laura Snyder (President, Stop Extraterritorial American Taxation (SEAT); Board of Directors, Association of Americans Resident Overseas (AARO)), The Myths And Truths Of Extraterritorial Taxation
6. Adam Rosenzweig (Washington University), Review Of The Global Tax Deal And The New International Economic Governance By Rebecca Kysar (Fordham)
7. Journal of Economic Perspectives Symposium, The Tax Cuts And Jobs Act Of 2017
8. Seton Hall News, Tax Prof Named Urban Studies Scholar To Research Why The FHA Funded An All-Black Community Despite A Whites-Only Policy
9. Kimberly Krieg (San Diego), Amanda Marino (San Diego State) & Landi Morris (Northern Arizona), Exploring (In)Equity In The Internal Revenue Code: Discussions Of Race In The Tax Classroom
10. Donald Drakeman (Notre Dame), Where Is The Wall Of Separation Between Direct And Indirect Taxes?

Faith:

1. NPR, Kamala Harris's Faith
2. Newsweek, Conservative Christian Colleges Are Facing Cancel Culture Problems
3. Washington Post Op-Ed (Anne Lamott), Do Not Mess With The Very Old
4. Daniel Silliman (Christianity Today), One Lost Soul: Richard Nixon’s Search For Salvation
5. Ryan Burge (Eastern Illinois University), Do Educated People Believe In God More Or Less?
   Christianity Today (Bonnie Kristian), Did God Protect Donald Trump On July 13th?

UC-Berkeley Is First Law School To Offer AI-Focused Degree

Berkeley Law Unveils Groundbreaking AI-Focused Law Degree Program:

Berkeley Law, renowned for its innovative legal education and leadership in law and technology, is proud to announce the launch of the first-ever law degree with a focus on artificial intelligence (AI). Set to begin in summer 2025, the AI-focused Master of Laws (LL.M.) degree is now open for applications.

Berkeley Law has long been recognized as the nation’s leading program in IP and tech law. The introduction of the AI Law and Regulation certificate for students in the LL.M. executive track represents a major step forward in this tradition, further equipping legal professionals to navigate the complexities of AI. The program can be completed over two summers or through remote study combined with one summer on campus.

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Evan Gershkovich, Other Freed Hostages Hit With IRS Tax Penalties For Their Time As Russia's Hostages

Following up on my previous post, Americans Wrongfully Detained Around The World Face An Additional Challenge At Home: The IRS:  Informa, Wrongfully Detained Americans Welcomed Back with IRS Penalties:

The tax man waits for no one. Unable to file tax returns while wrongfully detained, hostages are often welcomed back to the homeland with a tax bill. Case in point, the three freed Americans who were held hostage in Russia are now facing Internal Revenue Service fines and fees assessed while they were in captivity.

Wall Street Journal reporter Evan Gershkovich, former marine Paul Whelan and Russian-American journalist Alsu Kurmasheva were freed as part of a complex prisoner swap on Aug. 1, 2024. Gershkovich was detained for nearly 1 1/2 years, Kurmasheva for almost 10 months and Whelan for over five years. Now that they’re home, they’ll need to get their affairs in order, including sorting out IRS penalties and accruing interest assessed on individuals who fail to file their tax returns. When it comes to issuing penalties, the IRS doesn’t discern unlawfully detained citizens from those unscrupulous individuals avoiding taxes, as there’s no pause or postpone option available while wrongfully detained.

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Weekly SSRN Tax Article Review And Roundup: Eyal-Cohen Reviews Weisbach's An APA For Tax

This week, Mirit Eyal-Cohen (Alabama; Google Scholar) reviews a new work by David A. Weisbach (Chicago; Google Scholar), An APA For Tax.

The Administrative Procedure Act (APA) is a cornerstone of administrative law in the United States, providing a framework for the procedures and processes that federal agencies must follow. Its relevance to tax law has become increasingly significant as tax administration faces new challenges and reforms. This Article is one more piece in a series of articles, where scholars supporting tax exceptionalism (e.g. Caron, Lederman, Puckett, Weisbach, Walace, Zelenak, and others) debate anti-tax exceptionalism colleagues (e.g. Abreu & Greenstein, Hickman, Hoffer, Johnson, Infanti, Walker, and others) on the question of whether Treasury (and the IRS as its extension) violates the requirements of administrative law as laid out by the APA.  

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Weekly Legal Education Roundup

• ABA Journal, Is the National Conference of Bar Examiners Losing Power?
• ABA Journal, Students, Alums, Race To Court To Keep Golden Gate Law School Open
• AccessLex Institute, 2024 Legal Education Data Deck
• Barnes Law Firm, The Best State for Entry-Level Lawyers to Begin Their Careers: California
• Paul Caron (Dean, Pepperdine), Welcome, Pepperdine Caruso Law School Class Of 2027
• Chronicle of Higher Education Op-Ed (Mark Moyar), A Conservative Professor on Academe’s Political Conformity
• Nachman Gutowski (UNLV), Ashley London (Duquesne), Steven Foster (Oklahoma City) & Taylor Israel (Thomas Jefferson), Questioning the Inevitability of the NextGen Bar Examination
• Patricia Montana (St. John's), Peer Review in Advanced Legal Writing Course

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Tax Policy In The Biden Administration

• Bloomberg, Even Switzerland Is Discussing How to Tax the Super-Rich
• Bloomberg, FedEx, IRS Spar Over Loper Bright’s Effect on Tax Enforcement
• Bloomberg, Trump, Harris Duel for Voters With Budget-Busting Tax Proposals
• Bloomberg Editorial, Tax Cuts and Jobs Act Is Expiring and Public Finances Are in Trouble
• Conversable Economist, U.S. Tax Policy: The Coming Storm in 2025

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Students, Alums, Race To Court To Keep Golden Gate Law School Open

ABA Journal, Golden Gate Law students, alums, race to court to keep school open:

When Yvonne Ulibarri was looking for a part-time law school program in 2021, the Albuquerque, New Mexico-based special education English teacher made a spreadsheet of options that would allow her to keep her day job.

Then from out of nowhere, she received an email from the Golden Gate University School of Law, encouraging her to apply to the diverse San Francisco-based school’s JD Flex Program.

The hybrid program was just what she needed. Ulibarri, the first in her family to aim to be a lawyer, could fly directly from Albuquerque to San Francisco every other weekend on Friday after teaching for the required in-person portion, then fly back home Sunday night. She could watch videos and do readings for the online portion.

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July's Tax Reflections With Reuven Avi-Yonah

Reuven S. Avi-Yonah (Michigan; Google Scholar):

Taxing the Superrich After Moore, 184 Tax Notes 61 (July 1, 2024): 

Avi-Yonah proposes how to tax the wealthiest members of society in a constitutional manner in the wake of the Moore v. United States decision.

Taxation With Realization After Moore, 184 Tax Notes 69 (July 1, 2024):

Avi-Yonah considers the future of challenges to the realization requirement in light of the U.S. Supreme Court’s recent decision in Moore v. United States.

Should Large Corporate Mergers Be Subsidized?, 184 Tax Notes 295 (July 8, 2024): 

Avi-Yonah examines the history of tax-free corporate reorganizations.

Preventing Inversions, 184 Tax Notes 509 (July 15, 2024): 

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To Avoid Bankruptcy, California State Bar Signs $8 Million Contract With Kaplan For New Bar Exam

State Bar of California, State Bar, Kaplan, Sign Five-Year California Bar Exam Development Contract:

The State Bar of California and Kaplan Exam Services, LLC (Kaplan), a subsidiary of Kaplan North America, LLC, signed an $8.25 million, five-year exam development agreement on August 9, authorizing Kaplan to create multiple-choice, essays, and performance test questions for the California Bar Exam. As part of the agreement, Kaplan will also provide faculty and student study guides, which the State Bar will distribute at no cost. Kaplan will also exit the retail bar prep business specific to California, while continuing to serve other bar exam jurisdictions. 

The multiple-choice questions will replace the National Conference of Bar Examiners’ (NCBE) Multistate Bar Examination (MBE) in time for the February and July 2025 exams. 

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Florida Tax Review Publishes New Issue

The Florida Tax Review has published Vol. 26, No. 2 (Spring 2023):

• Noah Smith-Drelich (Chicago-Kent; Google Scholar), Food Tax Substitution Effects, 26 Fla. Tax Rev. 1 (2023) 
• Beverly Moran (Vanderbilt), How Federal Government Policy Helped Create Retirement Insecurity, 26 Fla. Tax Rev. 56 (2023) 
• Daniel J. Hemel (NYU; Google Scholar), The Passthrough Entity Tax Scandal, 26 Fla. Tax Rev. 87 (2023) 
• Edward J. McCaffery (USC; Google Scholar), The Paradox of Taxing the Rich, 26 Fla. Tax Rev. 130 (2023) 

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St. Louis Symposium: Teaching Legal Research, Writing, Communication, And Feedback

Symposium, Teaching Legal Research, Writing, Communication, and Feedback, 68 St. Louis U. L.J. 399-556 (2024): 

• Ellie Margolis (Temple; Google Scholar), Doing Less—Reflections on Cognitive Load and Hard Choices in Teaching First-Year Legal Writing, 68 St. Louis U. L.J. 399 (2024)
• Katrina Lee (Ohio State; Google Scholar), The Adaptable Legal Writer, 68 St. Louis U. L.J. 419 (2024)
• Brenda D. Gibson (Wake Forest; Google Scholar), Teamwork Makes a Dream Work: Collaboration in the Legal Writing, 68 St. Louis U. L.J. 431 (2024)
• Sylvia Lett (Arizona), Flattening the Learning Curve for International J.D. Students, 68 St. Louis U. L.J. 441 (2024)
• Olympia Duhart (Nova), Better Together: Building Community in the LRW Classroom, 68 St. Louis U. L.J. 459 (2024)

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Journal Of Economic Perspectives Symposium: The Tax Cuts And Jobs Act Of 2017

Symposium, The Tax Cuts And Jobs Act Of 2017, 38 J. Econ. Persp. 3-136 (2024): 

William G. Gale (Brookings Institution; Google Scholar), Jeffrey L. Hoopes (North Carolina; Google Scholar) & Kyle Pomerleau (American Enterprise Institute), Sweeping Changes and an Uncertain Legacy: The Tax Cuts and Jobs Act of 2017, 38 J. Econ. Persp. 3 (2024) (reviewed here by Sloan Speck (Colorado; Google Scholar)): 

The Tax Cuts and Jobs Act (TCJA) of 2017 introduced sweeping changes to individual and corporate taxation. We summarize the major provisions, trace the origins of the Act, and compare it to previous tax changes. We also examine the effects on the government budget, economic activity, and distribution of resources. Based on evidence through 2019, we find that the TCJA clearly raised federal debt and increased after-tax incomes, disproportionately increasing incomes for the most affluent. Its effects on GDP and median wages seem modest at best, although clear counterfactuals are difficult to identify. The impact on investment is less certain, and research is only recently emerging that addresses this question. Empirical analysis of longer-term effects may prove difficult due to the disruptions created by the COVID-19 pandemic starting in 2020.

Jon Bakija (Williams College; Google Scholar), The US Individual Income Tax: Recent Evolution and Evidence, 38 J. Econ. Persp. 33 (2024):

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Is The National Conference Of Bar Examiners Losing Power?

ABA Journal, Is the National Conference of Bar Examiners Losing Power?:

As the National Conference of Bar Examiners sunsets the Uniform Bar Exam in 2028, other pathways to practice outside of its exam offerings are emerging, leaving some to question the NCBE’s hold on controlling licensure.

California is moving forward with plans to develop a propriety exam with Kaplan North America, and Oregon and Washington are adding new pathways to the bar that don’t require an exam. That means fewer bar candidates will be taking NCBE-created exams.

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Haneman: Tax Sheltering Death Care

Victoria J. Haneman (Creighton; Google Scholar), Tax Sheltering Death Care: 

Death is not free. Funeral, burial, or cremation costs are the third largest category of expense over the lifetime of the average American, while poverty paradoxically remains the fourth leading cause of death. Many are unable to shoulder the often-exorbitant cost of death care without being forced to beg, borrow, or simply abandon human remains. Sufficient resources exist to ensure that everyone is laid to rest with dignity in the United States, but those resources are not evenly distributed. This is a conversation about affordable and humane disposition of remains as a right versus a privilege. It is a discussion made more difficult because several underlying issues are colliding in one space: consumer behavior is aberrational because of a desire to render death invisible; the funeral industry has an outsized voice in its own regulation; there are no reliable and broadly accessible death care prepayment instruments; and, expanding the (arguably inadequate) social safety net in the U.S. is usually an idea that meets with resistance. 

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A Conservative Professor On Academe’s Political Conformity

Chronicle of Higher Education Op-Ed:  A Conservative Professor on Academe’s Political Conformity, by Mark Moyar (Hillsdale):

Last year I visited Harvard at the invitation of two organizations in whose services I had labored as a student 30 years earlier: the Republican Club and the undergraduate conservative magazine The Harvard Salient. The Salient had recently adopted a policy of publishing articles under pseudonyms because of fears that naming the authors would result in damage to their grades, social lives, and careers. Those fears were validated by a report of the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression, which rated Harvard lower on free speech than the organization had ever rated any American university before.

I had not returned to Harvard since serving as a senior political appointee in the Trump administration. As my Uber approached, I wondered whether I would have to dash through a gantlet of organic tomatoes. In 2021 more than 200 members of the Harvard community signed a petition demanding that the university “refuse to serve as a tool to launder the reputations” of any Republicans who had “crafted and enabled the Trump administration’s anti-democratic, anti-immigrant, racist, and morally reprehensible abuses.” Harvard’s president at the time, Lawrence S. Bacow, then poured fuel on the fire by removing the Republican congresswoman Elise Stefanik from a Harvard committee because she had raised questions about the proprieties of the 2020 presidential election. As Stefanik would later point out in her grilling of Bacow’s successor, Claudine Gay, Harvard’s handling of controversial speech seemed to reflect a double standard. The university made no effort to punish any students or faculty members who appeared to endorse Hamas’s genocidal attack on 10/7.

In fact, no mobs materialized to bar my path. No leftists showed up to jeer my remarks on the finer points of history and politics. My hosts explained that the opposing side never showed up to hear conservative speakers. Prior interactions had led the young rightists to conclude that their left-leaning counterparts were so certain of their rectitude that they had no interest in contrary viewpoints. The Harvard conservatives also acknowledged, ruefully, that conservative students responded to this treatment by tuning liberal students out. No one was listening to, or conversing with, the other side. Surely the herd instincts and general overconfidence of the human species are in part to blame for this sad state of affairs. So is the media segregation that allows individuals to avoid contact with contrary viewpoints, and the coddling of youth by elite parents and culture. But colleges themselves deserve much of the blame. ...

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Delmotte: Redistribution Without Romance

Charles Delmotte (Michigan State; Google Scholar), Redistribution without Romance: 

Various tax scholars advocate for higher taxes on the wealthy to curb their influence on public policy. This "political economic" case for redistribution has recently gained extra traction through the Law and Political Economy (LPE) movement. While both tax and non-tax scholars defer to the tax system to implement higher taxes on the wealthy and reduce their political influence, the current literature lacks a comprehensive model of how this system operates. 

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Grimmelmann Reviews Lawsky's Coding the Code: Catala And Computationally Accessible Tax Law

James Grimmelmann (Cornell; Google Scholar), When Law Is Code (JOTWELL) (reviewing Sarah B. Lawsky (Northwestern; Google Scholar), Coding the Code: Catala and Computationally Accessible Tax Law, 75 S.M.U. L. Rev. 535 (2022)):

Sarah B. Lawsky’s Coding the Code: Catala and Computationally Accessible Tax Law offers an exceptionally thoughtful perspective on the automation of legal rules. It provides not just a nuanced analysis of the consequences of translating legal doctrines into computer programs (something many other scholars have done), but also a tutorial in how to do so effectively, with fidelity to the internal structure of law and humility about what computers do and don’t do well.

Coding the Code builds on Lawsky’s previous work on formal logic and its advantages for statutory interpretation. (Formal logic, sometimes called “symbolic” or “mathematical” logic, involves the precise and rigorous analysis of symbolic expressions representing arguments, such as “p & ¬q” to mean “p is true and q is not true”.) In her 2017 A Logic for Statutes, [21 Fla. Tax Rev. 60 (2017) (reviewed by Alice Abreu (Temple) & Richard Greenstein (Temple) here),] she observed that many statutory provisions have a characteristic structure: rules subject to exceptions. A typical rule says that WHEN certain conditions are satisfied, THEN certain consequences follow, UNLESS one of several exceptions applies. Exceptions have exceptions of their own: interest payments are deductible, unless they are personal, unless they are mortgage payments.

Lawsky’s great insight about law and logic is that this characteristic structure of nested exceptions is most naturally modeled using a branch of formal logic called “default logic.” 

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Crime And The EITC

Brigham Brau (North Carolina), Jeffrey L. Hoopes (North Carolina; Google Scholar), Junyoung Jeong (North Carolina; Google Scholar) & Mark H. Lang (North Carolina; Google Scholar), Crime and the EITC:

We examine the effects of an annual government social safety net payment on crime by leveraging geographic and intertemporal variation in the magnitude and timing of earned income tax credit (EITC) payments, combined with crime micro-data. We find that drug-related crimes increase somewhat whereas burglary and robbery decrease substantially within three weeks following peak EITC payments. Non-economic crimes, such as arson and sexual offenses, remain unchanged. Leveraging additional temporal variation in EITC disbursements induced by the PATH Act in 2017 confirms our findings. ...

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Federal Court Issues Injunction Prohibiting UCLA From Allowing Antisemitic Encampments To Block Jewish Students From Areas Of Campus

Frankel v. Regents of the University of California, No. 2:24-cv-04702 (C.D. Cal. Aug. 13, 2024):

In the year 2024, in the United States of America, in the State of California, in the City of Los Angeles, Jewish students were excluded from portions of the UCLA campus because they refused to denounce their faith. This fact is so unimaginable and so abhorrent to our constitutional guarantee of religious freedom that it bears repeating, Jewish students were excluded from portions of the UCLA campus because they refused to denounce their faith. UCLA does not dispute this. Instead, UCLA claims that it has no responsibility to protect the religious freedom of its Jewish students because the exclusion was engineered by third-party protesters. But under constitutional principles, UCLA may not allow services to some students when UCLA knows that other students are excluded on religious grounds, regardless of who engineered the exclusion. ...

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Truth, Justice, And Taxation: Towards An Ethical Framework For Tax Practitioners

Joshua Cutler (Boise State; Google Scholar), Truth, Justice, and Taxation: Towards an Ethical Framework for Tax Practitioners:

Uniquely, tax practitioners have dual ethical duties, both to the taxpayer-client and to the tax system. They protect the integrity of our voluntary tax system by ensuring that clients comply with the law, but they must also help clients minimize their legal tax liability. When tax law is ambiguous, as it often is, practitioners must decide how far they may go to interpret it in the client's favor. The professional responsibility standards provide little practical help in navigating this ethical dilemma. Instead, penalty provisions in the Internal Revenue Code set the parameters for taking uncertain positions, but these rules lack principles to guide their implementation and do not address other ethical dilemmas. This article seeks to fill this void and articulate for the first time an ethical framework for tax practitioners. 

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AI And Tools For Expanding Access To Justice

Quinten Steenhuis (Suffolk; Google Scholar), AI and Tools for Expanding Access to Justice, in The Cambridge Handbook of AI in Civil Dispute Resolution (Cambridge University Press 2025):

Access to justice is a fundamental right, yet for millions of people around the world resolution of legal problems via both formal and informal means isn't available, affordable, accessible, or understandable. The high cost of legal help, now between $200 and $400/hour across the United States, and the limited number of attorneys providing free legal aid, is just one of these barriers. This chapter explores how artificial intelligence (AI) is making a practical difference in the problems of everyday people by automating legal processes and making legal systems more affordable and accessible. This chapter discusses generative AI, traditional expert systems, and computational approaches each as tools that can help legal aid and private lawyers, and as tools that can help unrepresented people.

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Weisbach: An APA For Tax

David A. Weisbach (Chicago; Google Scholar), An APA For Tax: 

Recent Supreme Court cases threaten to upend the administrative law applicable to the tax system. Loper Bright eliminates Chevron deference. Ohio v. EPA heightens the scrutiny given to regulatory preambles. And Corner Post effectively eliminates the statute of limitations for challenging the validity regulations. A number of lower court decisions move in the same direction, aggressively using administrative law to invalidate guidance. Combined, these decisions threaten to make issuing guidance much more difficult and to slow the guidance process.

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Kamala Harris's Law School Alma Mater Looks For PR Boost From Candidate's Run

Reuters, Kamala Harris' Law School Alma Mater Looks For PR Boost From Candidate's Run:

After President Biden chose Kamala Harris as his 2020 running mate and the pair were elected to the nation’s two highest offices, applications to her law school alma mater surged 33%—far outpacing that year’s national 13% increase in law school applicants.

Administrators at the University of California College of the Law, San Francisco—which rebranded from the University of California Hastings College of the Law in 2023 and from which Harris graduated in 1989—attributed much of that 2021 gain to Harris’ new national profile.

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Where Is The Wall Of Separation Between Direct And Indirect Taxes?

Donald Drakeman (Notre Dame), Where is the Wall of Separation Between Direct and Indirect Taxes?:

Rob Natelson’s essay, “The Constitutional Line on Direct Taxes,” concludes that the Supreme Court’s decisions involving direct and indirect taxes have been “conflicting, uncertain—and wrong.” Those decisions may have been conflicting and uncertain, but whether they are wrong is a more complicated question.

He urges us to do a deep dive into “eighteenth-century tax vocabulary and … contemporaneous tax laws” to identify a clear and consistent understanding of these terms. Joel Alicea and I did just that a few years ago [The Limits of New Originalism, 15 U. Pa. J. Const. L. 1161 (2013)], and we focused on the carriage tax upheld in the landmark 1796 Hylton case. This was the Court’s first exercise of judicial review, and it is well worth reading, not least because we discovered that “the case was trumped up, the facts were bogus, the procedure was defective, and the Court lacked a quorum.”

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AccessLex Institute 2024 Legal Education Data Deck

AccessLex Institute, 2024 Legal Education Data Deck:

The 2024 Legal Education Data Deck utilizes datasets made publicly available by third parties to offer a snapshot of certain trends organized around the three guiding principles of AccessLex Institute’s research agenda: access, affordability, and value in legal education. This is a living document that is updated periodically — AccessLex welcomes comments, criticisms, and suggestions in order to make this as useful a tool as possible for all those we serve.

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