Most law students at Loyola take at least one course in Federal Income Tax. Many students with liberal arts backgrounds choose to pursue Loyola’s unique Tax Certificate Program. For the past five years, the School of Law has awarded an average of 30 certificates in tax law at graduation.
The strong student interest in tax law at Loyola is due largely to its exceptional faculty. Jeffrey L. Kwall, Loyola’s Bernard Beazley Research Professor of Law, has been a dynamic presence in tax law education at Loyola and around the country for more than three decades, and has been instrumental in developing Loyola’s innovative and expansive tax curriculum.
“Professor Kwall has an extraordinary ability to transfer his command of the tax code to his students and turn the most complex tax issues into easy-to-manage steps,” said Arianne Freeman (JD ’15), a first-year associate in Schiff Hardin’s corporate group. “His passion for tax is contagious. He has inspired many of his students, including me, to pursue tax and business-related legal careers.”
Kwall is the author of the leading comparative corporate and partnership tax casebook and has published tax articles in top journals. His article “Backdating,” has almost 7,000 downloads on the Social Science Research Network, putting him on the top ten list of tax professors for the past 12 consecutive months in the recent downloads category. The fifth edition of his casebook, The Federal Income Taxation of Corporations, Partnerships, Limited Liability Companies, and Their Owners was published this year. The seventh edition of Fundamentals of Modern Property Law, which he coauthored, will be published next year.
In addition to his distinction in scholarship, Kwall is a faculty favorite among students at Loyola. He was voted Faculty Member of the Year in 2007, and again this spring by the Class of 2016. “His teaching style makes conquering the most challenging subject matter a rewarding learning experience,” said third-year law student Noah Siegel, who has taken Federal Income Tax and Corporate and Partnership Tax from Kwall.
“I feel privileged to teach at Loyola with my wonderful tax colleagues, Anne-Marie Rhodes and Sam Brunson. Loyola students are the best—smart, practical, and open to pursuing an area of law they never imagined would captivate them,” said Kwall. “We could not be more proud of the many Loyola tax law graduates who have gone on to become successful business and tax lawyers in Chicago and beyond.”