Please tell me about the TAX LAW in your law school Forum

[davidforlaw]

Hello guys! I'm preparing to apply for a T14 law school and my interested area is tax law. I will be very grateful if you can share with me about any tax law courses or programs in your law school, so that I can make some comparison.

Thx a lot

[dabigchina]

NYU is kind of where it's at for tax law. Because they have the LLM program, they have all kinds of courses that you would otherwise not have access to.

I went to Columbia, which has pretty good tax professors (Raskolnikov and Scarborough being standouts), but has nowhere near the variety of tax classes. That being said, they offer more than enough courses to give you a good base to build on(fed tax, international, partnership, financial instruments, corporate). Columbia students can cross register at NYU for 1 class, but it always seemed like a bit of a hassle, so I never bothered.

As a piece of general advice, I was a tax gunner when I was a 0L, but realized that tax practice was not for me. I would put things like all-in cost and the general reputation of the law school above the strength of the tax program if I were you.

[CardozoLaw09]

NYU's tax LLM will open the most doors for you in tax.

As mentioned above, choose your law school based on overall reputation - no law school JD program is known for their tax curriculum. Try to get into the best school you can, take as many tax courses as possible, get tax internships, and then apply to NYU's LLM program.

[dabigchina]

I should add - I meant to say JD candidates at NYU have access to a wider range of courses. I do not think you should get a tax LLM unless you absolutely need to.

[QContinuum]

I should add - I meant to say JD candidates at NYU have access to a wider range of courses. I do not think you should get a tax LLM unless you absolutely need to.

I want to emphasize the above. There is generally no need (and no benefit) for T13 students to tack on a Tax LL.M. The NYU/Georgetown Tax LL.M. programs add value for top-quarter T1/T2 grads interested in tax law who strike out of BigLaw during law school. If you are able to get into a T13 J.D. program, you should not be anticipating/considering doing a Tax LL.M.

[nealric]

I should add - I meant to say JD candidates at NYU have access to a wider range of courses. I do not think you should get a tax LLM unless you absolutely need to.

I want to emphasize the above. There is generally no need (and no benefit) for T13 students to tack on a Tax LL.M. The NYU/Georgetown Tax LL.M. programs add value for top-quarter T1/T2 grads interested in tax law who strike out of BigLaw during law school. If you are able to get into a T13 J.D. program, you should not be anticipating/considering doing a Tax LL.M.

Some firms more or less expect that their junior tax associates do an LLM at NYU part time.

As for the OP: a focus on tax could tip the scales between similarly ranked schools, but shouldn't be much more than a tie breaker. For example, I'd probably choose NYU over Chicago or possibly Georgetown over Cornell if I were tax focused. But I wouldn't even think about NYU over Harvard or Georgetown over Penn. Ultimately, you really want a biglaw job to start out, and access to biglaw trumps tax specific programs. Note that LLM recruiting is much more Big4 focused. I did do an LLM full time because my firm was in deferral mode due to the recession 10 years ago and I needed to fill the time, but I wouldn't plan on doing that it advance.