Saturday, September 11, 2004

This week’s Tax Prof Spotlight continues our series of profiles of folks starting their careers this fall as tenure-track tax professors at American law schools. We hope the profiles will help introduce our newest tax colleagues to the academic tax community.

This fall, ten new tenure-track professors joined the faculty of the College of Law at Arizona State University. Included in that number were two professors specializing in tax: Adam Chodorow and Yariv Brauner. Yariv was profiled here last month. This week, the spotlight turns to Adam.

Adam is a relative newcomer to tax, but he has extensive experience in regulatory law, having spent 8 years in Pacific Gas and Electric Company’s Law Department. After obtaining his B.A. in classics from Yale, Adam attended the University of Virginia, obtaining both a J.D. from the School of Law and M.A. in history from the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences in 1990. Like most, he took tax in law school out of a sense of obligation and was surprised to discovery that he enjoyed it. Nonetheless, for reasons that now puzzle him, Adam decided to become a litigator. He began practice with Shartsis, Friese & Ginsburg in San Francisco, and then moved to PG&E, where he practiced energy-related litigation and regulatory law. Before leaving PG&E in 2002, he was deeply involved in the California energy crisis and PG&E’s consequent bankruptcy.

Adam’s interest in tax reemerged when he took time off after adopting a daughter from China. “When I wasn’t playing with Chloe, I spent a lot of time thinking about what I enjoyed in my regulatory practice and how I could spend more time doing the things I enjoyed. After several close friends suggested that I consider tax, I did some research and concluded they were probably right.”

With the support of his wife, Rebel Rice, and daughter (who really had no choice), Adam left PG&E to get a Tax LL.M. at NYU, where he earned both the David H. Moses Memorial Prize (for the student with the highest cumulative academic average) and the Harry J. Rudick Memorial Award (for distinction in the LL.M. Tax Program). He then clerked for the Tax Court Judge Joseph H. Gale before accepting the position at the College of Law at Arizona State University.

“At first, I have to admit I was a little put off when so many of my close friends suggested I was a tax person. Now, I can’t thank them enough. My time at NYU was one of the most exhilarating (and exhausting) experiences of my life. My only regret is that I didn’t do it sooner. Tax has a little of everything, including complex puzzle solving, social policy, history and politics.”

Adam is excited to be at ASU, which, with the addition of Adam and Yariv to Dean Patricia White and Sandy Guerin, is now in a position to develop and offer to students a full tax curriculum. Adam’s research interests include tax practice and procedure, tax history, and tax policy. He has also developed an abiding interest in things Chinese and hopes to pursue research into Chinese tax law.

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, particularly for our series on new tax professors. For prior Tax Prof Profiles, see here.