Paul L. Caron
Dean
Pepperdine Caruso
School of Law
Teaching
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Rands Named Teacher of the Year at Cincinnati
Congratulations to my tax colleague Bill Rands, named as one of three recipients of Cincinnati’s teacher of the year award. From the Cincinnati press release: It can be said that the worth of a true legal educator can be measured by his ability to help students understand black letter law, complex theories, and abstract principles.…
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AP: More Professors Ban Laptops in Class
Interesting article today from the Associated Press: More Professors Ban Laptops in Class, by Kathy Matheson: As the professor lectured on the law, the student wore a poker face. But that was probably because, under the guise of taking notes on his laptop, the student actually was playing poker — online, using the school’s wireless…
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L.A. Times on CSI: PowerPoint
There is a fascinating article in today’s L.A. Times for those of us who have sat through mind-numbingly boring PowerPoint presentation in faculty colloquia and job talks: Making a (Power)Point of Not Being Tiresome, by Claire Hoffman: PowerPoint is: Bullet Points A Mysterious Jumble of Graphs and Charts Utter Boredom But Cliff Atkinson, who runs…
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Caron on Teaching with Technology in the 21st Century Law School Classroom
I have posted Teaching with Technology in the 21st Century Law School Classroom, in The Future of Law Libraries (Thomson-West, 2006), on SSRN. Here is the abstract: These remarks were delivered at The Future of Law Libraries Symposium at Amelia Island, FL on March 10, 2005 and have been expanded and updated to be current…
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Harvard Law School Debates Use of Computers and Internet in the Classroom
Interesting article in yesterday’s Harvard Crimson: HLS Debates Laptops in Class; Some Worry That Net Surfing Distract Law Students from Class Discussions: As the issues of wireless Internet access and laptop use during class heats up at Harvard Law School, two prominent student groups hosted a wide-ranging discussion yesterday on whether the school should limit…
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Law Prof Under Fire for Banning Laptops in Class
Interesting Associated Press article about Law Prof June Entman (Memphis): Law Professor Bans Laptops in Class, Over Student Protest: A group of University of Memphis law students are passing a petition against a professor who banned laptop computers from her classroom because she considers them a distraction in lectures. On March 6, Professor June Entman…
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LexisNexis Publishes Second Book in Graduate Tax Series
On behalf of LexisNexis and the Graduate Tax Series Board of Editors (Ellen Aprill (Loyola-L.A.), Elliott Manning (Miami), Philip Postlewaite (Northwestern) & David Richardson (Florida)), I am delighted to announced the publication of the second book in our Series, Federal Tax Accounting, by Michael B. Lang (Chapman), Elliott Manning (Miami) & Steven J. WIllis (Florida).…
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Cohen on Teaching the Language of Tax
Stephen B. Cohen (Georgetown) has posted Words! Words! Words!: Teaching the Language of Tax, 55 J. Legal Educ. ___ (2006). Here is the abstract: Experienced tax lawyers deal easily with the ambiguous and imprecise terms that pervade tax law and discourse because they understand the intended meaning of a word from context. For students, however,…
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Washington State Changes Evaluation Form in Response to Complains of Anti-Conservative Bias
According to today’s Chronicle of Higher Education, Washington State University’s College of Education has changed an evaluation form it uses to judge students’ aptitude to become teachers in response to complaints that the form discriminated against conservative teacher candidates: The offending language: students in training to become teachers must exhibit "an understanding of the complexities…
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§ 121 Gain Exclusion, Bribery Edition
Stuart Levine has an interesting illustration of the § 121 exclusion of gains on the sale of a home, courtesy of the sentencing memorandum submitted by the prosecution in the Randy "Duke" Cunningham (R-CA) case [blogged here]: First, he sold his residence to a "briber" for $1.5 million. After he discovered that he would not…
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Call for Speakers: CALI Conference on Law School Computing
The 16th Annual Conference for Law School Computing will be held Thursday, June 15 through Saturday June 17 at the Nova Southeastern University Shepard Broad Law Center. The title of this year’s conference is "Rip, Mix, Learn." CALI has issued a Call for Speakers to law faculty, librarians, and IT staff with experience using, installing,…
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Teaching Tidbits on Gilliam v. Commissioner
For those who teach Gilliam v. Commissioner, T.C. Memo. 1986-81, on whether extraordinary behavior can give rise to ordinary and necessary business expenses: the Sam Gilliam, Jr. who went bezerk on the airplane and attempted to deduct his attorneys’ fees in the ensuing litigation is the artist whose work is being featured at the Corcoran…
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Stand By Your Mouse
The ever-vigilant Jim Maule reports a new twist in the flaming mouse story that gave rise to two posts on the casualty loss deduction implications for use in the basic tax class (here and here): Associated Press: [Luciano] Mares’ story of a flaming mouse that scampered from a burning pile of leaves into his rural…
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Mice Tales
We blogged yesterday about the casualty loss deduction implications of an Associated Press story that, according to Google News, was reported in over 300 newspapers and TV stations: a man supposedly caught a mouse in his house and threw it into a pile fo burning leaves, only to watch in horror as the buring mouse…
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Of Mice and Casualty Loss Deductions
Blackman v. Comissioner, 88 T.C. 677 (1987), is a staple in the basic income tax course. Soon after the taxpayer’s employer re-located him out of state, his wife returned to the home state with their children. In a last-ditch effort to convince his wife to move back with him in the new state, he paid…
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2006 Tannenwald Tax Writing Competition
The 2006 Tannenwald Writing Competition is sponsored by the Theodore Tannenwald, Jr. Foundation for Excellence in Tax Scholarship and The American College of Tax Counsel: Named for the late Tax Court Judge Theodore Tannenwald, Jr., and designed to perpetuate his dedication to legal scholarship of the highest quality, the Tannenwald Writing Competition is open to…
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LexisNexis Publishes First Book in Graduate Tax Series
On behalf of LexisNexis and the Graduate Tax Series Board of Editors (Ellen Aprill (Loyola-L.A.), Elliott Manning (Miami), Philip Postlewaite (Northwestern) & David Richardson (Florida)), I am delighted to announced the publication of the first book in our Series, Civil Tax Procedure, by David Richardson (Florida), Jerome Borison (Denver), and Steve Johnson (UNLV). The Graduate…
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Showing Movie Clips in Class
For those of you who like to spice up your classes with movie clips: here’s an interesting article on how to do it. (Hat Tip: Robert Ambrogi.)
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Hemingway on Course Management Systems for Legal Education
Joan MacLeod Hemingway (Tennessee) has posted Caught in (or on) the Web: A Review of Course Management Systems for Legal Education on SSRN. Here is the abstract: Like other teaching innovations, course management software has been somewhat slow to take hold in legal education. Yet, as law teachers, we cannot deny that our current students…
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Hickman Debuts in Blogosphere with Post Questioning Use of PowerPoint in Tax Class
A hearty blogosphere welcome to Kristin Hickman (Minnesota), who is guest blogging on PrawfsBlawg. Her maiden post recounts her use of PowerPoint for the first time this semester in teaching Tax I. She is stinting in her praise of PowerPoint: On the one hand, the PowerPoint is easier to read than my handwriting, and it’s…
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SSRN Launches Vehicle for Sharing Law Teaching Resources
SSRN has started a new Legal Scholarship Network abstracting journal, LSN Educator: Courses, Materials, & Teaching, edited by Lawrence A. Cunningham, Professor of Law & Business, Libby Scholar and Associate Dean for Academic Affairs at Boston College: LSN Educator: Courses, Materials, & Teaching is designed to offer a vehicle for law teachers to share information…
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More Tax Charts
Andrew Mitchel has updated his enormously helpful web site with over 100 tax charts to include a topic summary: A Reorganizations B Reorganizations C Reorganizations D Reorganizations F Reorganizations Triangular Reorganizations Spin-Offs Continuity of Interest Section 351 Exchanges Section 338 Elections Pre-Sale Distributions Liquidations Redemptions Entity Classification Form vs. Substance International We previously have raved…
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WSJ: The Laptop Backlash
Interesting Wall Street Journal article, The Laptop Backlash; Wireless Classrooms Promote Messaging and Web Surfing, Not Learning, Professors Say: Bringing laptops and wireless Internet access into classrooms was supposed to enrich classroom discussions by, for example, allowing students to import information from the Internet and share it with the rest of the class. But instead…
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I Hope This Idea Doesn’t Catch On . . .
Ian Ayres (Yale) has published an interesting op-ed in the New York Times, Just What the Professor Ordered. The op-ed follows up on the recent GAO report, College Textbooks: Enhanced Offerings Appear to Drive Price Increases (05-806) (51 pages). The GAO report notes: College textbook prices have risen at twice the rate of annual inflation…
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Teaching Tidbits on Gilliam v. Commissioner
For those who teach Gilliam v. Commissioner, T.C. Memo. 1986-81, on whether extraordinary behavior can give rise to ordinary and necessary business expenses: the Sam Gilliam, Jr. who went bezerk on the airplane and attempted to deduct his attorneys’ fees in the ensuing litigation is the artist whose work will be featured at the Corcoran…