Christopher M. Pietruszkiewicz (LSU)
- B.S. 1989, University of Scranton
- J.D. 1992, Loyola
- LL.M. (Tax) 1997, Georgetown
I grew up in a small town in Northeastern Pennsylvania and, when I go back to visit, I can still sit on the front porch and wave to every second or third car that passes the house. Unfortunately for me, I was born with an abacus, so career choices were very limited – accounting or, well, accounting. Not surprisingly, my degree is in accounting and I even earned a varsity letter in college — ok, technically I played golf in college.
After law school, I moved to Washington, D.C. and worked as an Attorney Advisor for the U.S. Department of Education for five years, writing legal opinions and working on Department-wide initiatives such as creating an agency-wide ADR program and trying to figure out how to operate the Department with a proposed 50% budget reduction.
I traded in my abacus for a calculator and enrolled in Georgetown’s LL.M. program, finishing a Jesuit school trifecta. I convinced the Department of Justice, Tax Division, to hire me as a Trial Attorney where I litigated everything from $2,000 bankruptcy cases to the validity of the passive activity loss regulations to the constitutionality of campaign finance reform under section 527. I completed my degree 2 ½ year later, juggling class schedules, deposition schedules, and trial calendars and enjoying all (well most) of the work, but certainly all of my colleagues.
While at the Department of Justice, I taught Corporate Tax as an adjunct at George Mason Law School (thank you Leandra Lederman) and continued to try to keep classes and trials on different days. A year later, in 2001, LSU lured me away from the riches of government service for the fame and fortune of academia to teach Income Tax, Corporate Tax, Tax Practice & Procedure, Accounting for Lawyers, and Comparative Tax.
Since 2001, I’ve lectured at Università Commerciale Luigi Bocconi in Milan, Italy and Université Jean Moulin in Lyon, France, written a number of law review articles, and co-authored a treatise on corporate reorganizations. In my spare time, I serve as Chair of the Admissions Committee, Chair of the Faculty Scholarship Committee, and an elected member of the Executive Committee.
I was elected President of the Southeastern Association of Law Schools in 2005, an organization consisting of 77 member and affiliate law schools from the United States, Canada, Australia, and the United Kingdom. To monitor the balance of power between my former colleagues at the Justice Department and the private tax bar, I’ve become involved in the American Bar Association, Section of Taxation and serve as Chair of the Individual Income Tax Committee, Subcommittee on Deductions, Chair of the Court Procedure and Practice Committee, Tax Lawyer Mentor Program, and the Special Features Editor of the ABA Section of Taxation NewsQuarterly.
My wife, Siobhan, and I met while refereeing a basketball game – first whistle buys the beer. I lost – well I won but lost the bet. We still referee high school and college basketball as a break from the real world and, because there is nothing better than a gym or arena full of fans, half of which don’t care that you exist and the other half politely and calmly telling you that your judgment is seriously impaired. We have two dogs, Elvis and Nora (breeds – unknown; origins – unknown; personalities – definitely) and a ten month old son, Ryan. We don’t dress him up in zebra strips or a pocket protector and there is no truth to the rumor that his first words included 1040 and “3 seconds” – but I can still hope.
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