Ellen P. Aprill, John Anderson Chair in Tax Law. Prof. Aprill is a fellow of the American College of Tax Counsel and a member of the American Law Institute. She holds a BA with high honors and distinction from the University of Michigan, an MA and CPhil from UCLA and a JD magna cum laude from Georgetown, where she served as articles editor of the Georgetown Law Journal. Upon graduation, she clerked for Judge John Butzner of the Fourth Circuit and Justice Byron White of the United States Supreme Court. After practicing with the firm of Munger Tolles & Olson in Los Angeles, she became an attorney advisor in the Office of Tax Policy at the Department of the Treasury. She has authored numerous articles, participated in numerous panels, institutes and symposia, and served as chair of the AALS Tax Section, chair of the Tax Section of the Los Angeles County Bar Association, editor of the ABA Tax Section Newsletter and articles editor of The Tax Lawyer, the ABA Tax Section’s scholarly journal. She is currently Vice-Chair— Communications for the ABA Tax Section.
Michael Larkin, Adjunct Professor. Prof. Larkin is Tax Counsel for the California State Board of Equalization (BOE) and the supervising attorney for the BOE's Tax Appeals Assistance Program Sales and Use Tax Clinic, in which law students represent taxpayers with sales and use tax appeals before the Board. Prof. Larkin has represented or supervised the representation of hundreds of clients with state tax appeals ranging from income tax to sales and use tax.
Alexander M. Lee, Adjunct Professor. Prof. Lee heads the transactional tax practice in the Los Angeles office of Cooley LLP, specializing in complex international corporate transactions. He received his JD from UCLA Law School and his LLM in Taxation from NYU, where he was a Tax Law Scholar and graduate editor of the Tax Law Review.
Julie A.D. Manasfi, Executive Director of Graduate Tax Programs and Associate Clinical Professor of Law. Julie Manasfi received a J.D. and LLM in taxation from New York University School of Law and a B.A. in Political Science with an accounting minor from the University of California, Los Angeles. She has a long history with LLS as she was a Visiting Assistant Professor of Taxation from 2008-2010, a Visiting Professor from 2019-2022 and an Adjunct Professor from 2022 to 2024. She was a tenured Professor of Law at the University of La Verne College of Law and an Associate Professor at Whittier Law School. Professor Manasfi's service experience there includes chairing key law school committees such as strategic planning, admissions, diversity and appointments. Her teaching experience includes Corporate Tax, Federal Income Tax, Tax Practice, Federal Income Taxation of Trusts and Estates, International Tax, Business Tax Intensive, Contracts, 1L Values & Skills, Property, Business Organizations, Sales, and Transactional Document Drafting. Professor Manasfi co-created the asynchronous LLS courses in Corporate Taxation I/II and International Taxation I/II. Her practice experience includes being an associate in Sidley Austin LLP's Tax Group in Los Angeles, an associate in White & Case's Tax Group in New York and a partner in Best Best & Krieger LLP's Business Services Practice Group in Los Angeles advising on a broad range of federal and state income taxation matters. She is licensed to practice in California and New York.
Katherine T. Pratt, Professor of Law. Prof. Pratt has served on the faculties of the NYU Graduate Tax Program, Saint Louis University School of Law and New York Law School, published in Vanderbilt Law Review, Cornell Law Review, and Wisconsin Law Review, among others, and is co-author of Federal Income Taxation: Examples and Explanations, one of the leading supplements in the field. In 2009, an article on electronic tax research of which she was co-author won the Outstanding Article award from the American Association of Law Libraries. She is also one of two principal authors of the ABA Tax Section's forthcoming guide to Tax LLM programs. Prof. Pratt earned her BA from the University of Florida, her JD from UCLA and an LLM in taxation and an LLM in corporate law from NYU. Prior to teaching, she practiced with the firm of Rosenfeld Meyer & Susman in Beverly Hills.
Theodore P. Seto, Frederick J. Lower, Jr. Chair. Prof. Seto has published articles in the Yale Law Journal, the University of Pennsylvania Law Review and the Tax Law Review, among others, has visited at Cornell Law School and the University of Paris X, and is the author of Federal Income Taxation: Cases, Problems, and Materials (West 2012). He is a magna cum laude graduate of Harvard College and Harvard Law School, where he served as Executive Editor of the Harvard Law Review. After completing law school, he clerked for Judge Walter Mansfield of the Second Circuit, practiced with the firms of Foley Hoag & Eliot in Boston and Drinker Biddle & Reath, where he was a partner in the tax group, and served as Articles Editor of The Tax Lawyer. In 2008, he served on the Obama campaign's Tax Policy Advisory Committee.
Craig Shaltes, Adjunct Professor. Prof. Shaltes is Senior Tax Counsel at California's Board of Equalization (BOE), with more than 19 years in income tax appeals. Since 2006, he has supervised the BOE’s Tax Appeals Assistance Program Franchise and Income Tax section, in which law students represent taxpayers in appeals before the Board. Prior to joining the BOE, he spent several years in private civil litigation practice. Prof. Shaltes earned his JD and LLM in taxation from McGeorge School of Law at the University of the Pacific.
Stephen J. Turanchik, Adjunct Professor. Prof. Turanchik is an associate in the tax group at Paul Hastings, where he focuses on tax litigation at the state and federal levels as well as tax controversy work at the administrative levels. Prof. Turanchik worked previously for the U.S. Department of Justice, Tax Division, where he litigated over 300 tax cases in federal, bankruptcy, state and probate court and received an Outstanding Attorney award. He is a graduate of Fordham Law School and holds an LLM in Taxation from NYU.
Don R. Weigandt, Adjunct Professor. Prof. Weigandt is a former Managing Director with the J.P. Morgan Private Bank, where he focused on helping clients to maximize after-tax wealth across multiple generations using innovative tax, estate planning and charitable techniques. He joined J.P. Morgan in 1998 after a 25-year career in private law practice in New York and Los Angeles. Prof. Weigandt earned his law degree from Columbia University’s School of Law.