Saturday, August 14, 2004

Eric Lustig (New England) has published Who We Are: An Empirical Study of the Tax Law Professoriate, 1 Pitt. Tax. Rev. 85 (2003). Here is part of the Conclusion:

This article reports the results of an empirical study of the tax law professoriate. The survey was conducted between late October 2001 and March 2002. The findings are based on surveys sent to over 600 tax law professors with a 22.75% response rate. The 137 survey respondents represent a broad range of 85 law schools and there is no indication that they are skewed in any significant way.

As with any profile, the breadth of the responses presents a richer picture than the actual profile. To some extent, a descriptive profile does emergefrom the data. The tax law professor is roughly the same age as the average law professor and is quite experienced in teaching. Like law professors generally, the tax law academy is predominantly white and male (although little bit more so). The tax law professor most likely majored in Accounting, Economics, History, or Political Science. In addition, the tax law professor is roughly twice as likely to have an LL.M. as the average law professor. Like most law professors, the tax law professor will almost always come to the academy with practical experience. And that experience is most likely to come from medium to large law firms, or to a lesser extent, the Internal Revenue Service.

A profile also emerges of the tax curriculum at the law schools where the tax law professor teaches. A basic tax curriculum at the majority of law schools would include Basic Income Tax, Corporate Tax, Partnership Tax (or some combination of Corporate and Partnership), Business Planning, Estate and Gift Taxation, Estate Planning, and International Tax. Most tax law professors devote the substantial majority of their teaching load to tax-indeed a significant number only teach tax courses. Those who do teach nontax courses are most likely to teach Trusts and Estates, Property, Business Associations, or Contracts….