ABA Law Student Tax Challenge

at Lewis & Clark Law School
2008-2009

November 15, 2008

We have crossed the finish line – the first one, anyway.

Our five LC teams have submitted their legal memoranda and client letters to the ABA national competition. They will now be judged by a panel of prominent tax attorneys. The top six teams from law school J.D. programs around the country will be invited to defend their analyses at the ABA Tax Section meeting in New Orleans in early January. The six teams are scheduled to be notified on December 19.

Congratulations to our 10 participants, and the best of luck to them in the judging. Meanwhile, a little thing called finals is fast approaching; good luck there as well.

Jack Bogdanski

September 29, 2008

We are down to five teams (10 participants), but that is still a record turnout for us, and the high level of interest shows the health of our law school’s tax program.

Our second and final tax research training session is now complete, and it appears that all but one of our participants caught it in person.  If you are a participant and did not attend, you must watch the podcast of the session on the link provided to you by e-mail.

In other news, the ABA sent out a rule change Thursday that allows teams within the same school to collaborate with each other to a limited extent.  This is a change from past practice. LC teams are encouraged to collaborate within the parameters permitted by the new rule, but such collaboration is completely optional. Teams may or may not share information as they see fit.

Participants who are members of the LSTC listserv should have received the ABA notice in their e-mail on Thursday.  If they did not, or if they haven't signed up for the listserv yet, they should go to the ABA site and be sure they are correctly signed up for that listserv: http://www.abanet.org/tax/lstc/.

I am about to review the problem now, and I will be back to our teams shortly with the modest amount of additional faculty guidance permitted by the rules. 

Jack Bogdanski

September 13, 2008

We are off and running!

We have a record turnout this year – six Lewis & Clark Law School teams are planning to enter the ABA LSTC competition. There are six semi-finalist slots in the national competition, and we are shooting to pick up all six!

Our extensive research techniques training program has reached the halfway mark, and of course, teams are already working furiously on the problem.

Team members: If you have not yet signed up for the ABA LSTC listserv, please do so right away.

For outside observers who are tracking our quest, the problem and official rules (along with more details about the ABA competition) are here.

Jack Bogdanski

Created by: bojack@lclark.edu
Update:  15 Nov 08
Expires:  31 Aug 09