Tax Law Faculty (2023-2024)

Howard E. Abrams (William K. Jacobs, Jr., Visiting Professor of Law) is a partnership and corporate tax specialist.  He was the Warren Distinguished Professor and Director of Tax Programs at the University of San Diego School of Law from 2014 to 2017, and he taught at Emory University from 1983 to 2013.  He has also taught as a Visiting Professor at Cornell, Berkeley and Yale law schools.  In addition, he served as the Director of Real Estate Tax Knowledge at the national office of Deloitte Tax from 1999 to 2000, and he was of counsel to Steptoe & Johnson in Washington, DC, from 2003 to 2004.  Professor Abrams has written four books, the BNA Tax Management Portfolios on Disregarded Entities and on Partnership Options, and more than fifty articles on taxation, and he was a law clerk to Chief Judge Theodore Tannenwald, Jr., of the United States Tax Court.  He received a B.A. from the University of California (Irvine) and a J.D. from Harvard.  2023-2024 courses: Partnership Tax (Fall); Taxation (Fall); Maximizing Joint Gains (Spring).

Avi S. Alter (Lecturer on Law) is Head of Strategic Advisory and a Managing Director in the Mergers & Acquisitions Group at Credit Suisse in New York. He provides structuring advice to clients on a broad array of transactions including complex mergers and acquisitions, tax-free spin-offs and split-offs, cross-border transactions, tax-free reorganizations, sales of closely-held businesses, IPOs and transactions involving master limited partnerships, S-Corporations and real estate investment trusts.  Prior to joining Credit Suisse, he was a member of the tax group at Sullivan & Cromwell in New York.  Mr. Alter holds a J.D. from Harvard Law School and a B.A. in economics from Yeshiva University. 2023-2024 course: Tax Aspects of Structuring Deals (Spring)

Marc Bloostein (Lecturer on Law) has been practicing in the Private Client Group of Ropes & Gray since 1989, and has been a partner of the firm since 1997.  He focuses on estate planning, and his practice includes all aspects of trust and estate administration.  He is co-author of the annual supplements to Newhall’s Settlement of Estates and Fiduciary Law in Massachusetts and is a frequent lecturer to lawyers.  Mr. Bloostein received a B.A. from Brandeis University in 1985 and a J.D. from Cornell Law School in 1988.  He clerked for the Honorable Stanley Brotman, U.S. District Court for the District of New Jersey (1988-1989). 2023-2024 course: Estate Planning (Spring).

Thomas J. Brennan (Stanley S. Surrey Professor of Law) joined the faculty in 2015, after teaching at Northwestern University School of Law and the Kellogg School of Management.  Brennan previously taught at the Drexel University School of Law in the finance and economics department of the Boston University School of Management.  He was also a visiting scholar affiliated with the Laboratory for Financial Engineering at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology Sloan School of Management.  Before entering academics, he worked as a strategist in the Capital Markets Strategies Group of Goldman, Sachs & Co. and as an associate in the tax department of Cravath, Swaine & Moore LLP.  He received an A.B. in Mathematics from Princeton in 1994, an A.M. in Mathematics from Harvard in 1995, a Ph.D. in Mathematics from Harvard in 1998, and J.D. from Harvard in 2001.  Brennan focuses his research on the use of finance and economics to analyze and inform tax policy, as well as the use of empirical methods to investigate the effects of tax laws and the strategic behavior of taxpayers.  2023-2024 courses: Taxation (Fall); Tax Law, Finance, and Strategic Planning (Fall); Taxation of Business Corporations (Spring); Writing Group: Taxation (Fall/Spring).

Mihir A. Desai (Mizuho Financial Group Professor of Finance at Harvard Business School and Professor of Law at HLS) is the the Chair of Doctoral Programs at Harvard Business School. He received his Ph.D. in political economy from Harvard University; his MBA as a Baker Scholar from Harvard Business School; and a bachelors degree in history and economics from Brown University. In 1994, he was a Fulbright Scholar to India. Professor Desai’s areas of expertise include tax policy, international finance and corporate finance. His work has emphasized the appropriate design of tax policy in a globalized setting, the links between corporate governance and taxation, and the internal capital markets of multinational firms. He is the author of International Finance: A Casebook and a Research Associate in the National Bureau of Economic Research’s Public Economics and Corporate Finance Programs, as well as the co-director of the NBER’s India program.  2023-2024 courses: Taxation (Fall)

Daniel I. Halperin (Stanley S. Surrey Professor of Law Emeritus) joined the faculty in 1996 after practicing in New York, serving in the Treasury Department (including as Deputy Assistant Secretary for Tax Policy) and teaching at Pennsylvania and Georgetown. He received a B.B.A. from the City College of New York in 1957 and a J.D. from Harvard in 1961. His recent research has focused on nonprofits and retirement income.

Louis Kaplow (Finn M. W. Casperson and Household International Professor of Law and Economics) joined the faculty in 1982 after clerking on the second circuit. He received a B.A. in Economics and Mathematics from Northwestern in 1977, as well as a J.D. in 1981 and a Ph.D. in Economics in 1987, both from Harvard. His recent research has focused on taxation and redistribution, as well as law and economics.  2023-2024 courses: Taxation (Spring)

Audrey Patten (Lecturer on Law) joined the Legal Services Center of Harvard Law School in 2015 as an attorney in the Consumer Law Clinic, in which she represented domestic violence survivors in debt collections, bankruptcy, and affirmative consumer protection cases as part of a medical-legal partnership with the Passageway Program at Brigham and Women’s Hospital. She then moved into LSC’s Tax Clinic in 2017, becoming a Clinical Instructor in the Tax Clinic in 2018.  Audrey’s tax clinic practice focuses on representing low income clients in cases and controversies before the Internal Revenue Service, the United States Tax Court, and the Massachusetts Department of Revenue. In addition, she regularly litigates tax cases in the United States District and Circuit Courts. Prior to joining LSC, Audrey was a staff attorney in the Battered Women’s Legal Assistance Project/Family Law Unit at Merrimack Valley Legal Services in Lowell, MA. Audrey graduated with a J.D. with Honors from Emory University School of Law. She also holds a Master of Arts in Regional Studies – East Asia from Harvard University and a Bachelor of Arts with Honors in International Relations from Brown University.  2023-2024 course: Federal Tax Clinic/Federal Tax Clinic Seminar (Fall, Spring)

Deborah L. Paul (Lecturer on Law) is a tax Partner at Wachtell, Lipton, Rosen & Katz in New York City.  She was the 2019 Chair of the New York State Bar Association Tax Section and has been the author of numerous articles, such as “Has Helen’s Ship Sailed?  A Re-Examination of the ‘Helen of Troy’ Regulations” and “How to Kraft (or not Kraft) Debt-Equity Regulations”.  Prior to coming to Wachtell Lipton in 1997, Ms. Paul was an Assistant Professor at the Benjamin N. Cardozo School of Law from 1995 to 1997, an Acting Assistant Professor at the New York University School of Law from 1994 to 1995 and an Associate at Cravath, Swaine & Moore from 1990 to 1994.  Ms. Paul clerked for Chancellor William T. Allen on the Delaware Court of Chancery from 1989 to 1990.  She received an A.B. from Harvard College with a concentration in Philosophy, a J.D. from Harvard Law School and an LL.M. in Tax from New York University School of Law. 2023-2024 course: International Taxation (Spring)

Peter Rosenberg (Lecturer on Law) is a partner at Ropes & Gray, LLP in Boston. In 1985, his second year at the firm, he joined the firm’s Employee Benefits practice group.  As Ropes & Gray’s transactional practice grew throughout the 1990’s, Peter focused increasingly on the benefits aspects of transactional work.  Concurrently, with the growth in private equity and hedge funds, Peter began to counsel asset manager clients with respect to ERISA’s so-called “plan asset rules” governing when investment partnerships and similar arrangements are subject to ERISA’s fiduciary standards. Peter’s practice is now almost exclusively focused on ERISA’s “Title I” fiduciary conduct rules. He has served as the firm’s Practice Group Leader for Employee Benefits. 2023-2024 course: ERISA (Spring)

Davis Wang (Lecturer on Law) is a partner at Sullivan & Cromwell in the Firm’s Tax Group, representing clients in structuring various complex transactions, including mergers, acquisitions and restructurings, securities offerings, cross-border financings and tax planning and controversy.

Alvin C. Warren, Jr. (Ropes & Gray Professor of Law) joined the faculty in 1979, after teaching at Connecticut, Duke, and Pennsylvania. He received a B.A. in English from Yale in 1966 and a J.D. from Chicago in 1969. His recent research has focused on financial innovation, corporate tax reform and European tax policy. 2023-2024 tax courses: Taxation (Spring).