F. Philip Manns, Jr. (Liberty)
- B.S. 1982, Virginia
- J.D. 1987, Maryland
I became a tax lawyer, because that’s the field engineers chose when they went to law school in 1984. Now engineers in law school choose patent law, but that field was not rescued from its moribund state until the early 1990s when the Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit invigorated patent law (and not coincidentally intellectual property became the mainstay of the U.S. economy).
I graduated from college with a B.S. in Chemical Engineering, and as I worked for two years as an engineer, I noticed that the really interesting issues always were referred to lawyers. Engineers are a collegial bunch, working in teams to solve problems, with very little individual credit or blame. However, because we had contracts with suppliers, blame became relevant when problems arose. At that point, the engineers scattered, uninterested in nontechnical questions like fault, but I remained interested in them.
Off to law school I went, convinced I’d become a trial lawyer in the small town in which I grew up outside of Baltimore. However, at the University of Maryland, tax was a required third-semester course. Like virtually every law student taking his or her first tax class, my expectations were low. [And that is one of the great virtues of teaching tax, students’ expectations are so low that it is easy to surpass them.]
In my income tax class, Bob Keller opened my eyes to the majesty of tax law. He and Dan Goldberg then shepherded me through corporate tax, advanced corporate tax, and partnership tax. In my summers, I clerked at the tax departments of large firms in Atlanta, Baltimore, and Washington, D.C.
After law school, I served a one year clerkship with Judge Frank Murnaghan of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit. He was a grand, renaissance man, constantly judging and teaching the law as a seamless web. I hope to make that come alive in the minds of my students. To be a good lawyer, especially a tax lawyer, one must have a thorough understanding of all parts of the law, because tax consequences derive from those other areas of the law. And that is why tax is such an intellectual feast.
Following my clerkship, I practiced as a tax associate with the Atlanta office of King & Spalding for three years, and joined the California Western law faculty in 1991. [Philip joined the Liberty faculty in 2006.]
My latest research and writing interests demonstrate how an interest in tax law takes one out into the web of the law. I taught, in income tax class, Davis v. United States, 495 U.S. 472 (1990), which held that parents of religious missionaries could not deduct as charitable contributions payments they made to their missionary sons at the direction of, and in the amount specified by, the church, because the payments were not “to or for the use of” (in the sense of “in trust for”) the church. I was surprised that no Religion Clause argument was made in the case. I decided to figure out why not, and that lead me to chart (in decidedly tax lawyer fashion) the Religion Clauses along a spectrum of governmental assistance, including tax expenditures. The result was Charting the Spectrum of Prohibited and Permitted Aid to Religion, 2001 Utah Law Review 319.
The Supreme Court can neither leave the Religion Clauses alone nor agree on a theory of interpretation for them, so a fertile ground for writing exists. I followed up with Finding the Free Play Between the Establishment and Free Exercise Clauses, 71 Tenn. L. Rev. 657 (2004). A few months ago, the Court decided two cases regarding the display of the Ten Commandments by governments, and my third article in the area is underway.
In my free time, I attempt to regain the existential pleasures of engineering by doing all my own vehicle maintenance (there is just something about turning a wrench), woodworking, and general house maintenance. That and keeping up with my wife and three children and trying to be active in my church keep me busy.
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