TaxProf Blog

Joel S. Newman (Wake Forest)

• A.B. 1968, Brown
• J.D. 1971, Chicago

In college, I wanted to be a city planner, so I thought I’d get a master’s in public administration, city planning, something like that. Then I discovered that most of the folks who were really making a difference in urban renewal were lawyers, so I went to law school instead. While I was at it, I spent two summers working with the redevelopment agency in New York City. I reached two conclusions: 1) that the problems of large cities (especially New York) were insoluble, and I didn’t want to spend my life butting my head against a wall; and 2) that the property and urban renewal courses I took in law school were really boring (I didn’t especially like the tax courses either, but I loved Professor Wally Blum). However, by that point, I was halfway through law school, so I thought I might as well stick it out.

I spent two years in a New York firm—most of it on one antitrust case. Then I spent three years in a midsized firm in Minneapolis. I did some tax work in Minneapolis, and actually liked it. The rest is history.

I’ve been at Wake Forest since 1976, but I’ve also visited at Florida, Notre Dame, North Carolina and Hawaii, and taught on a Fulbright in China. I teach tax and professional responsibility. Although I’ve written a casebook and a number of traditional law review articles, most of my writing is short pieces for Tax Notes. In some ways, I prefer to be a political reporter, teasing out the gossip on why tax laws are the way they are. There’s legislative history, and then there’s what really happened.

Jane and I have been married for 35 years. We have two children—Bryce, 31, and Becky, 27. I owe Jane a ton, first, because she enriches my life so much. Second, because she and I bet against each other frequently, and I usually lose.

I play a number of musical instruments, including clarinet, saxophone, and guitar. I also own a Chinese gong, for ritual occasions. I play jazz with a couple of groups in town, and classical music with a clarinet ensemble on campus. I’ve arranged a couple of doo-wop pieces for the clarinet ensemble, which the group will perform this spring. Also, bored by the drippy music coming out of the carillon on the Wake campus, I wrote out a version of the Beatles’ “I Want to Hold Your Hand” for carillon. So far, it’s been played twice. The carillon player (a student of mine) has not been fired yet.

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. For prior Tax Prof Profiles, see here.