The University of Florida Levin College of Law is up in U.S. News & World Report rankings released March 12. Among the nation’s 201 public and private ABA-accredited JD-awarding law schools, UF’s law school is 23rd among public schools and 46th overall.

The publication places the school in two top specialty program rankings: first among public law schools and third overall in tax, and fifth among publics and 12th overall in environmental law. UF Law also continues to be highly rated in terms of reputation – 10th among publics and 26th overall in the assessment of practicing lawyers and judges, and 15th among publics and 35th overall in the assessment of academics.

“We are pleased that we continue to be one of the best values available in legal education,” said UF Law Dean Robert Jerry, referring to UF Law’s high placement for quality and equally low placement for cost among all U.S. law schools. “We’re among the three most affordable law schools in the US News top 50, when taking tuition and cost of living into account.

“At the same time, I caution every year that U.S. News and other rankings need to be considered in context and weighed along with other factors in evaluating institutional quality and fit, particularly when one considers the many factors not reflected in this ranking that make UF Law a leading law school,” Jerry said. “For example, we have a proven track record in providing leaders for the profession at both the national and state levels, and the prominence of our alumni in the federal and state judiciaries also sends a strong statement about our quality.”

In other national rankings, UF Law was fourth among public law schools in 2011 (eighth among all law schools in the nation) in the number of its graduates serving as federal district and circuit court judges.  More than 250 graduates serve as state appellate and trial judges in Florida, and many serve in those roles in other states as well. A 2012 Journal of Legal Education article titled “Where Do Partners Come From?” surveyed the National Law Journal 100 law firms and found that UF Law ranked 11th among publics and 29th overall in the number of alumni graduating from 1986 to the present serving as partners. A ranking by Super Lawyers magazine placed UF Law first in Florida, fourth among public schools, and eighth overall in “output,” i.e. the caliber of a school’s graduates. A 2012 article from Legal Metrics ranking law schools based on the number of arguments by their alumni before the U.S. Supreme Court since 2000 placed UF Law in the top 10 nationally.

“That a large number of law schools hire our graduates as law professors is also a sign of the college’s strength,” said Jerry.

A study published in the August 2011 Journal of Legal Education ranked UF Law in the top 33 (17 percent) of law schools nationwide, and as high as 22nd (11 percent) in one calculation, for the impact of its faculty on the law.

UF Law is also one of the top 10 law schools in the nation for Hispanics, according to Hispanic Business Review (seven times in nine years), and was ranked in 2012 as one of the top six schools for blacks in the South by On Being a Black Lawyer magazine.

It is unusual for a school to be so affordable, successful in both academia and the profession, and highly rated in such diverse areas.

“Thanks to our exceptional faculty and outstanding graduates, the UF Law Graduate Tax Program has ranked at the top of the U.S. News specialty tax area for as long as they have published the list, and remains the No.1 public school in this area,” said Associate Dean for Graduate Tax Mike Friel. “We are always gratified to see the program’s quality recognized in this way.”

ELUL Program Director Mary Jane Angelo said, “We are proud that UF’s Environmental and Land Use Law Program continues to be distinguished as a top program in this critical area. We have a large and dynamic program, and the faculty and students work very hard through projects like our annual Public Interest Environmental Conference, which attracted 250 participants to Gainesville this year, to make a genuine impact on current environmental issues.”

Jerry concluded, “The University of Florida is a quality school that cares about our students and offers them multiple paths to career satisfaction and success. We have state-of-the-art facilities and a beautiful campus, and we are part of one of the best and most comprehensive universities in the nation. The loyalty and influence of the Gator Nation’s law alumni cannot be overstated. Rankings like those published in the Journal of Legal Education and elsewhere offer interesting information for prospective students to consider and can help guide us in our continuing efforts to improve, but should be used as only one data point among many.”

William J. Wilkins, chief counsel for the IRS and assistant general counsel in the Treasury Department, lectured Sept. 28 to UF Law students, faculty and staff. (Photo by Cela Suter)

By Francie Weinberg
Student writer

The chief counsel for the Internal Revenue Service returned to UF Law Sept. 28 to present a lecture in which he encouraged students to embrace tax law.

William J. Wilkins, who also is assistant general counsel in the Treasury Department, presented  “How IRS Lawyers Contribute to Sound Tax Enforcement” as part of the Graduate Tax Program Enrichment Speaker Series to a full Chesterfield Smith Ceremonial Classroom.

Wilkins has worked in tax law since graduating with a B.A. from Yale University and a J.D. from Harvard Law School. In his lecture, he discussed the role of tax lawyers in the IRS and how they contribute to sound tax administration.

“The bulk of the work is taking care of tax court petitions,” Wilkins said. “This is essential to our mission, which includes providing for uniform, correct and impartial application of the tax laws.”

Lawyers’ three main jobs in the office of chief counsel are creating regulatory infrastructure, handling resolution of tax conflicts and providing legal advice to the commissioner and other IRS executives. Though Wilkins is the chief counsel, he works closely with each associate office and its members regardless of political affiliations.

“There are only two presidential appointees in the IRS: the chief counsel and the commissioner,” Wilkins said. “I think this speaks to the fact that the organization is really not political. There are a lot of buffers and circuit breakers in terms of any sort of political intervention in what we do.”

Wilkins also touched on a tougher, more controversial subject when he brought up the new tax regimes recently implemented by the IRS, including indoor tanning services, pharmaceutical companies and health insurance providers, which he addressed in the question-and-answer section of the lecture.

“When we write regulations, we want to be sure that we have done all the research to see if there are any prior Supreme Court cases that limit us,” he said. “We also do research, so when we say, ‘could we be accused of overturning a previous regulation?’ we know that we’re being careful.”

Regardless of the long days in the office and always being on-call, Wilkins said that benefits greatly outweigh the costs. He encouraged any students who are interested to jump at the opportunity to get involved in tax law.

“I have found tax law to be a great career choice,” he said. “It presents some of the most interesting and rewarding legal careers that are available. As you go through your career and you talk to people in the tax world, they very often say that those were some of the best years of their practice.”

IRS Chief Counsel William Wilkins discussed the service's evolving adaptation to today's world. (Photo by Joey Springer)

Adaptation to one’s environment is key to survival, and while that may have first been observed in the animal world, it holds true in many circumstances. The IRS faces the same challenge, and on Thursday, Oct. 7, IRS Chief Counsel William Wilkins described to students what the service is doing to adapt to the changing circumstances of today’s world.

One of the themes of current practice that Wilkins described was how to best leverage the staff of his office into favorable results. Many people might be surprised to learn that the Office of Chief Counsel has around 2,500 employees, which is no small number. But when that number is compared with the approximately 300 million Americans in this country, not to mention the millions of businesses, it becomes apparent that Wilkins must use his staff wisely to get the necessary results.

He described one successful use of leverage that emerged from the fallout of the UBS scandal.

“You may remember,” Wilkins said, “that UBS was caught promoting tax evasion as a business model, and that was leading to the disclosure of a lot of secret accounts within that organization.” Afterward, the IRS decided to let others who had stashed income in overseas accounts fess up, under what the service termed the Voluntary Disclosure Program. Those who came clean could settle their tax matters, and would not have to face the harsher penalties that would be waiting for them if they kept silent.

“The outcome exceeded all the hopes,” Wilkins said. Instead of spending years or decades trying to catch and punish these tax cheats, the Office of Chief Counsel was able to use their resources efficiently and recover the unpaid tax dollars that were due. “We were able to leverage a few hundred practitioners into 15,000 disclosures,” Wilkins said.

The average middle-class taxpayer knows a couple things about filing taxes: tax forms are difficult to decipher, and private accountants don’t come cheap. With this in mind, it’s not surprising that tax preparation offices that cater to the middle-class have become widespread and successful. However, taxpayers have recently come to also understand that the person behind the desk may not know much more about taxes than the customer.

One of the service’s future goals is to regulate those who are paid to prepare anyone’s tax return. “Later on,” Wilkins said, “preparers will need to pass a test and do continuing education to maintain their eligibility to be a paid preparer. The goal there is to try to elevate the quality of the tax preparer.”

He also detailed that the IRS has become much more than a tax collector. With the economy in a slump, the government has notably used the service to implement strategies to improve the economy. One that just about everybody has heard of is the first-time house-buyer credit, which gave the public a tempting financial incentive to buy a house. While filling out one tax return may seem cumbersome, handling hundreds of millions of them, while trying to correctly implement new and creative measures like the home-buyer credit, is quite a difficult task.

Nevertheless, the IRS was up to the task. Wilkins was proud of how well it was handled, and also thought it was a good demonstration of the breadth of the current service. “The IRS really did a remarkable job in rolling that out,” he said, “and it shows the robustness of the organization in terms of its ability to interact, at the retail level, with lots and lots of people.”

Former IRS Associate Chief Counsel, Jasper L. Cummings, Jr.,

“Fun stuff” may not be the first words to come to a law student’s mind when considering the topic of tax law. But former IRS Associate Chief Counsel, Jasper L. Cummings, Jr., assured students in the Graduate Tax Program that “fun stuff” may in fact become a part of their future careers.

Cummings, the most recent contributor to UF Law’s Enrichment Speaker Series, addressed a full house with his presentation, “Doing Tax Law, Learning Tax Law, and What to Do When It Doesn’t Make Sense.”

As the title suggests, students should anticipate that tax law is something they will actively be doing, and not merely acting as a passive participant. “Doing tax law is the reason you are here,” Cummings said.

Cummings emphasized that doing tax law follows an economic perspective, from the ground up, beginning with demand. At the source of that demand are the clients. Cummings analogized that doing tax law without a client is like being a violinist without a violin. Because clients often view taxes as a barely necessary nuisance, like going to the dentist, the expectations of clients are result oriented. A lawyer’s success will depend on his or her ability to meet the client’s demand for a substantial tax reduction. Unlike other areas of practice in which a lawyer may need to provide an elaborate explanation of how he or she arrived at a legal conclusion to a law partner or judge, tax clients are result-oriented. “They’re not going to want to know how you figure this out,” Cummings said.

“Showing up is 80 percent of success,” Cummings said, quoting Woody Allen. “If you don’t read to the end of the section [of the applicable law], you did not show up.” When learning tax law, students should be prepared to start at the bottom and tackle the law starting with the codes and regulations. Students also should become familiar with the available research tools, and always be sure to have a comprehensive understanding of the facts in a given case.

“Nine times out of 10, you will need to understand the fundamentals of the issue and not just find the case law on point,” Cummings said.

Full immersion is the best way to learn tax law, and students should avoid taking the kinds of shortcuts that might be more common among undergraduate students. The facts in a tax case are just as important as they were in a law student’s first-year cases, and both students and lawyers alike must have a complete understanding of the facts in their respective cases.

“If you mess something up, it is never going to be anybody else’s problem but yours,” Cummings warned. Students should also start thinking about the specific areas of tax law in which they want to focus. “Unfortunately, you’re going to have to specialize in the tax world,” Cummings said.

As lawyers specialize, their clients also will grow to include other lawyers. And with experience, lawyers will gain so-called “walking-around knowledge,” which Cummings describes as the kind of knowledge that is principally intuitive. Tax law is a century old, and students ought to come out of school with a familiarity of the standard “vocabulary cases,” with the ultimate goal being the development of walking-around knowledge.

Because of the well-established history of tax law, there is more of a logical explanation for the rules and conclusions in tax law than there are in any other area of the law. Because many students perhaps “resist being dragged through the history of the code” – where the reason for a given rule is often buried – Cummings advised that students avoid this resistance.

“Understanding the reason for a rule makes it much easier to remember and apply,” he said.

The Supreme Court has decided more than 1,000 federal tax cases interpreting the code, and these cases should not be overlooked. Even if a case was decided in 1942, a lawyer who cites Supreme Court case as precedent places the burden on the opposing party to come up with a good enough reason for why the court hearing the case at hand should not follow the Supreme Court – a rather heavy burden to meet.

Although applying standard solutions for a client can be very satisfying work, Cummings considers the “fun stuff” to be the difficult cases that go beyond the standard solutions and solve the unique problems of the client.

Cummings also considers tax law to be the most intellectually challenging type of law. He said it took him seven years of experience that included teaching tax law to really gain an understanding of the law. “When you get your degree, you have not arrived,” Cummings said.