What We Talk About When We Talk About Tax Complexity

I learned most of what I know about being a lawyer, a teacher, and a scholar from Professor Douglas Kahn. For four months in the spring of 1997, Doug mesmerized and terrified me in the class that I feared would be my academic downfall—Partnership Taxation. In the years that followed, Doug has been a mentor and friend, encouraging and supporting me at every stage of my professional career. And my experience is not unique: Doug has inspired generations of law students in just the same way.

There is no adequate way to thank Doug for everything he has given to students like me who have been lucky enough to sit in one of his classrooms. Doug is a force of nature—inspiring, challenging, and unquestionably dedicated to his students. Doug is the reason I became a tax lawyer, and he is also the reason that I became a law professor. Every day that I walk into a classroom, I try to do for my students what Doug did for me nineteen years ago.

As a result, “thank you” has never felt like a serviceable way to communicate to Doug how grateful I am to have a role model like him.