Mark W. Cochran (St. Mary’s)
- A.B.J. 1977, Georgia
- J.D. 1980, Vanderbilt
- L.L.M. (Tax) 1981, Florida
Teaching is the only career I’ve ever considered, other than astronaut, professional athlete, fifth Beatle, Pulitzer winning journalist, and high powered attorney. How I ended up teaching federal tax law rather than history or algebra, on the other hand, requires a bit of explanation.
By the time I started high school, Neil Armstrong had walked on the moon and the Beatles were in the process of breaking up. My football career had peaked in eighth grade, when I saw action in one game and almost made a tackle. Having come to grips with my lack of athletic ability, I volunteered as a photographer for the high school newspaper. I demonstrated some talent for photography and ultimately for writing as well, with a particular flair for satire. At the time, I fancied myself as a the next Art Buchwald or Margaret Bourke-White. My senior year I was editor in chief of the newspaper, and this led me to major in Journalism at the University of Georgia. My choice was solidified the summer before I started college, when the Watergate hearings took center stage and two reporters named Woodward and Bernstein became national heroes.
The idea of law school had never occurred to me until I covered a felony trial as an assignment for a newswriting class. I was surprised to discover that the trial had little to do with impassioned Perry Mason speeches and a lot to do with technical, theoretical matters. Oddly enough, that appealed to me quite a bit, and graduate education seemed more attractive than getting a real job. As I neared graduation from college, I had narrowed the possibilities to law school or a Ph.D. program in History. Law school became the first choice when I ran into one of my young history professors moonlighting at a gas station.
I chose Vanderbilt Law School primarily because of its location. I was interested in copyright and entertainment law, and I was too naive to realize that the bulk of that work was done in New York and Los Angeles. Nevertheless, Nashville was a pleasant city, Vanderbilt was a great law school, and my attention soon was diverted from the music industry. During my second year, I took a part time clerking job with a boutique firm that specialized in federal taxation. I took the job because I needed the money, but I quickly realized I had found my niche. Federal tax law offered in abundance the technical, theoretical qualities that originally attracted me to law. The next logical step, and a way to postpone getting a real job for at least one more year, was an LL.M. in Taxation. I decided on the University of Florida, in part because of the affordable tuition and agreeable climate and in part because I had enjoyed the Freeland, Lind and Stephens casebook. Jack Freeland and Steve Lind were even better in person than in print, and their colleagues were equally talented and dedicated. The outstanding faculty, together with a capable, cohesive, and motivated student body, made the Florida tax program a transcendent educational experience.
Flat broke but graduate tax degree in hand, I returned to Nashville to practice with Boult, Cummings, Conners & Berry, a thriving general practice firm where I got a steady and varied diet of tax, including corporate, partnership, estate planning and probate, executive compensation, tax exempt organizations, and tax controversy work. I even got the chance to work with a few music industry notables, which proved to be a disappointment. (I’ll never forget explaining an estate plan to a well known entertainer whose body language betrayed a combination of contempt and utter boredom.) When the firm decided to launch an in-house newsletter, I returned to my journalistic roots and volunteered to write a monthly column. My lampoons of law firm life delighted my colleagues but probably hastened my departure from the firm. After four productive, educational, and sometimes entertaining years, I entered the AALS faculty appointments process and ended up at St. Mary’s, where I remain 20 years later. Along the way, I’ve spent a semester at Vermont Law School as a visiting professor and a year at the IRS Chief Counsel’s Office as Professor in Residence.
I regularly teach basic Federal Income Taxation and a course called Taxation of Business Entities, which covers Subchapters C, K, and S. For the past five years, I have had the humbling experience of teaching first year Contracts in addition to the two tax courses. I have also taught Law and Economics and Conflict of Laws, the latter of which was my favorite course in law school and is my favorite course to teach. I have taught a variation of Conflicts called Transnational Litigation for our summer program in Innsbruck, Austria, and I currently serve as Co-Director of that program. I have a hard time believing I get paid to spend July in the Alps.
I have been married to Paula, a registered nurse, for 23 years, and we have two teenage sons. I do the cooking, Paula does the yard work, and the boys watch television. Truth be told, I watch with them if it’s college football, Spurs basketball, or a major golf tournament. (Sometimes we have to turn up the volume to drown out the lawn mower.) I also practice the guitar once in a while, just in case Paul and Ringo decide to start another band.
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