Howard E. Abrams
William K. Jacobs Visiting Professor of Law
2023-2024
Howard E. Abrams, a Visiting Professor at Harvard Law School, is a partnership and corporate tax specialist, receiving his B.A. from the University of California (Irvine) and his J.D. from Harvard University. He has written four books, the BNA Tax Management Portfolios on Disregarded Entities and on Partnership Options, and more than fifty articles on taxation. From 2014-2017, Professor Abrams was Warren Distinguished Professor and Director of Tax Programs at the University of San Diego School of Law. He taught at Emory University from 1983 until 2013, spent the 1999-2000 academic year with the national office of Deloitte Tax as the Director of Real Estate Tax Knowledge, and from January of 2003 through August of 2004 was of counsel to Steptoe & Johnson in Washington, DC. He has taught at Leiden University in the Netherlands and at the Technical University in Dresden, Germany, and is a member of the American Law Institute and the DC Bar. Professor Abrams was a law clerk to Chief Judge Theodore Tannenwald, Jr., of the United States Tax Court and practiced in Los Angeles with the firm of Brobeck, Phleger & Harrison. Professor Abrams has taught as a Visiting Professor at Cornell, Berkeley, and Yale law schools. His articles have appeared in the Harvard Law Review, the Tax Law Review, the Tax Lawyer, Tax Notes, and other publications. He has been the William K. Jacobs Visiting Professor since 2017.
Education
- J.D. Harvard Law School, 1980
- B.A. Mathematics University of California, Irvine, 1976
Bar Admissions
- United States Tax Court, United States (1980)
- Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals, United States (2012)
- District of Columbia Bar, District of Columbia, United States (2003)
- California Supreme Court, California, United States (1980, inactive)
Clerkships
- Theodore Tannenwald, Jr., United States Tax Court, 1980 - 1982
Representative Publications
- Howard E. Abrams, Regarding Disregarded Entities, 28 Tax Mgmt. Real Estate J. 151 (2012)
- Howard E. Abrams, How to Shoehorn a Disregarded Entity's Discharge of Indebtedness Into Section 108 Relief for Its Owner, 21 Tax Mgmt. Real Estate J. 351 (2005)
- Howard E. Abrams, JCT Proposal on Partnership Nonrecourse Debt Unwarranted, 21 Tax Mgmt. Real Estate J. 315 (2005)
- Howard E. Abrams, Issues and Strategies in Exiting Partnerships, 57 N.Y.U. Inst. Fed. Tax. 11 (1999).
- Howard E. Abrams, The Art and Science of Negotiation, 37 Ok. L. Rev. 437 (1984) (reviewing Howard Raiffa, The Art and Science of Negotiation (1982)).