David M. Hasen (Michigan)
- B.A. 1984, Reed College
- Ph.D. 1993. Harvard
- J.D. 1996, Yale
I am one of those people who “fell” into tax law. After college I entered a Ph.D. program in political science, planning for a teaching career. My main interest was political theory. By the time I completed the program, however, there were few teaching jobs, and prospects in political science seemed dim. I therefore took what seemed like the default option and went to law school. At the time I was considering both a law teaching career and law practice.
I took the introductory federal income tax course as a 2L, but only because I believed that a basic knowledge of tax law was important for a lawyer starting out; it was not a course that I thought I would enjoy. In fact I was pretty anxious about it. I was not at all sure I would be able to deal with all the numbers I expected or to navigate the dense Code language that, as one of my classmates once noted, “never seems to get past the optic nerve.”
But, as is not surprising given where I am now, I took an immediate liking to the subject, and by the end of the semester I concluded that it was probably the area for me. I’m sure that having Reed Shuldiner as my professor (visiting from Penn that semester) is part of what made it so interesting. Beyond that, like many of our cohort, I enjoy the challenge of fitting the pieces of tax puzzles together. There is something gratifying about referencing and cross-referencing the various relevant provisions to come up with the answer that is “right” in at least a technical sense. In addition, the policy issues are similar to many of those I had studied in graduate school, so moving into tax was in some ways like going back to my old stomping grounds, only with an added practical dimension that has made the subject alive for me in new ways.
After graduating and clerking for a year, I worked in San Francisco in the tax departments of Orrick, Herrington & Sutcliffe, and Wilson Sonsini Goodrich & Rosati. The practice at Orrick was quite varied. It included corporate transactions, tax controversies, the taxation of financial products and a fair amount of non-profit tax work. At Wilson it was full immersion in Subchapter C. The combination gave me a broad if basic background in a variety of areas, and a reasonably deep knowledge of corporate tax. Both have served me well.
After several years of practice I went on the law teaching market and was hired by the University of Michigan, in 2002. Most of my teaching has been standard tax courses – the basic course, corporate tax, and a couple of tax policy seminars – and I’ve enjoyed them tremendously. Both my time at Michigan and as a visitor at Hastings College of the Law in the fall of 2005 have made me feel truly blessed to have this job.
I have benefited greatly from the support of my Michigan tax colleagues, Reuven Avi-Yonah, Tsilla Dagan (now in Israel), Doug Kahn, and Kyle Logue, and of my colleagues at Hastings, especially Stephen Lind and Leo Martinez. Apart from the sage advice they have given me about teaching and research, they have each, in different ways, helped me to see how being a tax professor offers opportunities for service to students, colleagues, the bar, and those under-served by the legal system. I consider these opportunities both a privilege and a challenge, and I look forward to expanding my service in the future, especially to those who are economically disadvantaged.
My family and friends, and especially my wife, Diane Eisenberg, have been extremely supportive of me in my rather tortuous career path. A special thanks, however, goes to my father, Joel Hasen, who himself practiced tax law for many years but never pushed me into the area. I stumbled in all on my own!
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