Faculty Roundup: The latest highlights from UCI Law’s faculty
Sameer Ashar
Professor Sameer Ashar will serve as a panelist on Feb. 10 at ClassCrits XIV, themed “Demanding Justice in the Face of Retrenchment: Finding Common Ground and Building Coalition Across Borders.” Ashar will appear on a panel discussion of “The History and Future of the Labor Union Movement” with co-panelists Michael Green (UNLV), Shirley Lin (Brooklyn Law School), Angela Cornell (Cornell Law School) and Christopher Cameron (Southwestern Law School). The event is co-sponsored by ClassCrits, Inc., Southwestern Law School, The Law & Political Economy Collective, The Southwestern Law Review, and the Southwestern Journal of International Law, and held at Southwestern School of Law.
Swethaa Ballakrishnen
Professor Swethaa Ballakrishnen will serve as a panelist on Feb. 10 at ClassCrits XIV, themed “Demanding Justice in the Face of Retrenchment: Finding Common Ground and Building Coalition Across Borders.” Ballakrishnen will appear on a panel titled “Revisiting Race & Class” with co-panelists Neil Gotanda (Western State College of Law), Gil Gott (DePaul University) and Reshard Kolabhai (LL.M. candidate, Yale Law School). The event is co-sponsored by ClassCrits, Inc., Southwestern Law School, The Law & Political Economy Collective, The Southwestern Law Review, and the Southwestern Journal of International Law, and held at Southwestern School of Law.
Joshua Blank
Professor Joshua D. Blank’s article “The Inequity of Informal Guidance,” 75 Vand. L. Rev. 1093 (2022) (co-authored with Leigh Osofsky), was discussed by National Taxpayer Advocate Erin M. Collins and cited on p. 42 in her Annual Report to Congress. The full report is available at https://www.taxpayeradvocate.irs.gov/wp-content/uploads/2024/01/ARC-2023_FullBook_FINAL.pdf. The report identifies and discusses what Collins believes to be the ten most serious problems taxpayers face in their dealings with the IRS, summarizes the tax issues most frequently litigated in the Tax Court and other federal courts, and makes administrative and legislative recommendations to mitigate taxpayer problems and improve the taxpayer experience. Blank has been listed No. 40 in TaxProfBlog’s roundup of The 50 Most Downloaded U.S. Tax Law Professors of 2023.
Veena Dubal
Professor Veena Dubal spoke at ClassCrits XIV on Feb. 9, themed “Demanding Justice in the Face of Retrenchment: Finding Common Ground and Building Coalition Across Borders.” Dubal served as a keynote speaker and appeared on a panel discussion of “Race, Work and Twenty-First Century Organizing” with co-panelists Angela Harris (UC Davis School of Law), Shirley Lin (Brooklyn Law School) and Saul Sarabia (Solidarity Consulting). The event was co-sponsored by ClassCrits, Inc., Southwestern Law School, The Law & Political Economy Collective, The Southwestern Law Review, and the Southwestern Journal of International Law, and held at Southwestern School of Law.
Victor Fleischer
Professor Victor Fleischer has been listed No. 47 in TaxProfBlog’s roundup of The 50 Most Downloaded U.S. Tax Law Professors of 2023. Fleischer’s most recent scholarship is Tax and the Boundaries of the Firm, USC Center for Law and Social Science Research Paper Series No. 24-13 (January 22, 2024) (co-authored with Jordan Barry).
Stephen Lee
Professor Stephen Lee spoke at ClassCrits XIV on Feb. 9, themed “Demanding Justice in the Face of Retrenchment: Finding Common Ground and Building Coalition Across Borders.” Lee appeared on a panel discussion of “Immigration—Identity, Violence and Mobility” with co-panelists Daniel Morales (Virginia Commonwealth University), Isabel Medina (Loyola University College of Law) and Maria Teresa Gomez. The event was co-sponsored by ClassCrits, Inc., Southwestern Law School, The Law & Political Economy Collective, The Southwestern Law Review, and the Southwestern Journal of International Law, and held at Southwestern School of Law.
Omri Marian
Professor Omri Marian has been listed No. 28 in TaxProfBlog’s roundup of The 50 Most Downloaded U.S. Tax Law Professors of 2023. Marian was also recently appointed the United States national reporter for next year’s 77th Congress of the International Fiscal Association (IFA), a nonprofit global platform where representatives of all professions and interests can meet and discuss international tax issues at the highest level. The annual Congress will be held in Lisbon, Portugal October 5-9, 2025, themed “Residence for Corporate Income Tax Purposes.”
Ezra Ross
Professor Ezra Ross’s forthcoming article “Amorality in the Lawyering Skills Classroom,” 73 J. Legal Educ. __ (2024), explores client-centered lawyering as one facet of the “hidden curriculum” in 1L Lawyering Skills courses. In the article, Ross suggests imposing a client-centered lens in the 1L classroom can thwart, rather than promote, the goal of student reflectiveness about lawyering approaches, and can unwittingly advance a shriveled view of attorney morality and professional identity. The article’s abstract was shared on TaxProf Blog.
Ann Southworth
Professor Ann Southworth’s book, “Big Money Unleashed: The Campaign to Deregulate Election Spending” (University of Chicago Press 2023), was reviewed by Professor Robin Kolodny (Temple University) for CHOICE, a compilation of short reviews for librarians. Southworth also has a slate of upcoming book-related engagements, including a series of guest blog posts on UCLA Law Professor Rick Hasen’s Election Law Blog and the lead article in the May issue of The Practice Magazine, a journal published by Harvard Law School’s Center on the Legal Profession. Southworth will participate in a book talk at Fordham Law School on April 15 sponsored by the Stein Center on Law and Ethics and the Fordham Law School Voting Rights and Democracy Forum. She will also attend an author-meets-reader event in June at the Law & Society Association Annual Meeting in Denver, with Scott Cummings (UCLA Law), Eli Wald (University of Denver Sturm College of Law), Robin Stryker (Purdue), and Chuck Epp (University of Kansas) serving as commenters.
Heather Tanana
Visiting Professor Heather Tanana participated in several engagements, including: Villanova Environmental Law Journal Symposium, Blame, Burden and Bravery: Gender Justice, Indigenous Justice and the Environment (February 9, 2024) (Indigenous Leadership panelist); UCLA Law Review Symposium, Red Rising: The Shifting Legal landscape of Tribal Sovereignty (February 8-9, 2024) (Indigenous Water Rights and the Trust Responsibility panelist); University of Arizona, Navigating the Rapids: Colorado River Governance in the 21st Century (February 15, 2026) (Digging into the Diverse Uses/Interests panelist); Ohio State Law Journal Symposium, (February 23, 2024) (Environmental Justice Future panelist). Tanana’s article, “Indigenous Science and Climate Responses,” was published in the American Bar Association Civil Rights and Social Justice Section's publication Human Rights magazine, 49 Human Rights 18 (2024). Tanana also participated in a webinar featuring articles in the magazine (recording available here).