Saturday, September 18, 2004

This week’s Tax Prof Spotlight of Eric Chason (William & Mary) continues our series of profiles of folks starting their careers this fall as tenure-track tax professors at American law schools. We hope the profiles will help introduce our newest tax colleagues to the academic tax community.

I went to Duke undergrad (mathematics and economics) and then Virginia law school (note editor of the law review, John M. Olin student fellow in law & economics, and winner of the Edwin S. Cohen tax prize). What drew me to tax law was the belief that the intellectual challenges of the classroom really do carry over into practice. I was fortunate in law school to have great tax law professors, such as Bob Danforth (now at Washington and Lee), Julie Roin (now at Chicago), and George Yin (now at JCT).

After law school, I worked for two years at McGuireWoods in Charlottesville doing estate planning, and then six years at Ivins, Phillips & Barker in Washington, D.C. doing employee benefits. Ivins is the oldest (and, depending on one’s reckoning, largest) U.S. tax firm. By any standard, it is a superb law firm with an outstanding practice and clientele. I truly enjoyed my time at Ivins and could certainly have spent a career practicing there. In fact, I was voted a partner at the firm just before I took the job at William & Mary.

Even with the intellectual challenges of practice, I was drawn back to the classroom. Some have said I had peculiar timing in switching from private practice to academia right after getting the brass ring. In my mind, though, having achieved that goal made me realize that my time was running out if I ever wanted to try academia. I had a long-standing interest in teaching, and I knew that the opportunity like the one at William & Mary might never come again. My wife and I had been to Williamsburg before and really loved it. Having lived in Virginia for our entire married lives made the decision easy as well. Of course, the main draw was the outstanding students and faculty here at William & Mary. Particular thanks go out to fellow tax profs Glenn Coven and John Lee.

I teach Trusts and Estates in the Fall and the Spring. Although I thus may not officially be a tax prof yet, I will start teaching tax classes in 2005-06. I am trying to finish an article on nonqualified deferred compensation. I previously wrote an article about the economics of tax transition rules, and am looking to write more on that after I’ve finished the deferred compensation piece. My previous articles are:

• The Economic Ambiguity (and Possible Irrelevance) of Tax Transition Rules, 22 Va. Tax Rev. 615 (2003)
• Settlements and Waivers Affecting Pension Benefits Under ERISA, 14 Benefits L.J. 61 (2001)
• Toward a Practical Estate-Tax Exclusion for Family-Run Businesses: Analysis of Section 2033A and Proposal for Reform, 32 Real Property, Probate & Trust J. 571 (1998) (with Robert Danforth)
• The Proper Role of the Estate and Gift Taxation of Closely Held Businesses, 32 Real Property, Probate & Trust J. 103 (1997) (with Robert Danforth)

Each Saturday, TaxProf Blog shines the spotlight on one of the 700+ tax professors in America’s law schools. We hope to help bring the many individual stories of scholarly achievements, teaching innovations, public service, and career moves within the tax professorate to the attention of the broader tax community. Please email me suggestions for future Tax Prof Profiles, particularly for our series on new tax professors. For prior Tax Prof Profiles, see here.