Article on Mabel Walker Willebrandt, First AAG Tax (11/10/18)

I have just finished reading a wonderful article, William Hoke, Women in Tax Law -- Willebrandt Breaks DOJ Glass Ceiling (Tax Notes Worldwide Tax Daily 11/12/18), here.  (This link may be a temporary link; I have asked Tax Notes for permission to put the article on my Google Docs web site as a permanent link; I have not heard back yet.)  Readers having access to Tax Notes Worldwide Tax Daily may read it before I obtain that permission.

The Hoke article is fascinating with a lot of interesting detail on Willebrandt.  Well written.  Highly recommended.

Hoke cites in the article this "posthumous" interview of Mabel Walker Willebrandt, here, by Jasper L. Cummings, Jr.,a and Alan J.J. Swirski.  Excerpts from this interview:

Mabel Walker Willebrandt headed what became the Tax Division of the U.S. Justice Department from 1921 to 1929. She was famous at the time not for her tax duties but for her duties in enforcing the Volstead Act (Prohibition), which also was handled by her division. She was the second female Assistant Attorney General.*
* See generally Elizabeth K. MacDonald, “The Justice Department and Some Problems of Enforcement:” Mabel Walker Willebrandt, “Prohibition Portia” (posted at Women’s Legal History Project, Stanford University); Mabel Walker Willebrandt, The Inside of Prohibition (1929); Dorothy M. Brown, Mabel Walker Willebrandt: A Study of Power, Loyalty and Law (1984) (which was serialized in the New York Times); The Frederick A. Cook Society website; New York Times obituary, Apr. 9, 1963, at 31; various New York Times Archive articles, including Jan. 11 and 19, 1925, Nov. 17, 1925, Sept. 27, 1928, May 28, 1929, Apr. 15, 1934, and Oct. 22, 1950. 

Q What did you do before you joined the Justice Department?
A I graduated from the law school of the University of California in 1916 and largely defended prostitutes in police court. I served as the first public defender for women in Los Angeles, without pay, and represented over 2000 women. I did become active in Republican Party politics. 

Q Why were you appointed to head Prohibition enforcement?
A Well, as one of my friends said: “Nobody in the Justice Department wanted that job. It had no political  advantages at all. So, of course, they gave it to Mabel.” So I certainly did not seek out that part of the job. Eventually the opposition of the wets kept me from being appointed as the first female federal judge.Q Was there any conflict between your responsibility for Prohibition enforcement and for tax appeals?

A Some would say so. I recall the time I ruled that imported bootleg alcohol could be sold by the  Federal Marshals tax free. Secretary Mellon and the Commissioner were against me on that one and took it up with the Attorney General and Congress. The Times headline said I “overruled Mellon.” 

Q How many cases did you argue in the Supreme Court?
A My office submitted 278 cases on certiorari to the Supreme Court and I personally argued many of them; I am listed on 172 cases. Of course, my staff wrote most of the briefs.

Death of Rick Halberstein (10/29/18)

Richard ("Rick") Halberstein, a DOJ Tax alumni, who served in the Appellate Section according to my records, died on August 29, 2018.  His WAPO obituary, here (scroll down), is short, so I cut and paste it:

Richard Halberstein, 
lawyer 

Richard Halberstein, 75, a Washington lawyer and Capitol Hill neighborhood activist who was a founder and treasurer of the Capitol Hill Community Foundation, died Aug. 29 at his home in Fort Lauderdale, Fla. The cause was respiratory failure, said his wife, Leona Atkins. 

Mr. Halberstein was born in Marion, Ohio, and came to Washington in 1970. He was a tax lawyer with the Justice Department and the House Ways and Means Committee before opening a private law practice in 1976. His specialties included tax, probate, real estate, family law and services to small businesses and organizations. He was co-director of the Capitol Hill Free Tax Clinic. He retired and moved to Fort Lauderdale last year.

I have fond memories of Rick for the short period we overlapped in the Appellate Section.

Sorry for the late posting on this, but just received notice recentlty.

Pat Mullarkey Retires (9/15/18)

Keith Fogg has this great write up on Pat Mullarkey:  Recognizing Pat Mullarkey (Procedurally Taxing Blog 9/13/18), here. Highly recommended reading for DOJ Tax Alumni!

I am sure that all of us who came within the ambit of Pat's broad influence at DOJ Tax learned from him and wish him the best.

Chad Muller Lifetime Achievement Profile in Texas Lawyer (9/1/18)

Chad Muller is recognized in the Texas Lawyer lifetime achievement profie: ALM Staff, Lifetime Achievement: Charles J. Muller, Chamberlain, Hrdlicka, White, Williams & Aughtry (Texas Lawyer 8/31/18), here.

Interesting History on Carlton Fox, DOJ Tax, and His Compilations of Legislative History (8/8/18)

This morning, I was reading this article:  Nicholas Parillo, Leviathan and Interpretive Revolution: The Administrative State, the Judiciary, and the Rise of Legislative History, 1890-1950, 123 Yale L.J. 266 (2013), here.  I cut and paste a paragraph with footnotes on an early comprehensive compilation of tax legislative history compiled by Carlton Fox of the Tax Division:

As a third example, take the DOJ Tax Division. Founded in 1919 and greatly expanded in the 1930s, the division in 1931 hired an attorney named Carlton Fox, n229 who became "a pioneer in the field of legislative histories." n230 By the late 1930s, Fox had assembled scrapbooks of primary material on the internal revenue laws - apparently consisting largely of legislative history - that totaled forty-five volumes. n231 When a private tax attorney published a one-volume "legislative history" of the internal revenue laws in 1938, Griswold criticized it in the Harvard Law Review, arguing that it was not "much more than a digest or partial index," declaring that the "only place where the complete sources may now be found is in the compilations which have been made by Carlton Fox, Esq., of the Department of Justice," and concluding that "the final story on the legislative history of the Revenue Acts will not be told until Mr. Fox's compilations can be made more readily available." n232 The Tax Division apparently took advantage of its legislative history to guide the DOJ field service, sending circulars to the U.S. Attorneys' Offices with legislative history on commonly litigated questions. n233
   n229. 1934 DOJ Register, supra note 199, at 3.
   n230. Hudon, supra note 73, at 325.
   n231. A copy of the set was donated to the Supreme Court and discussed in Oscar D. Clarke, The Library of the Supreme Court of the United States, 31 Law Libr. J. 89, 91 (1938). Clarke describes the collection as forty-five volumes and covering "tax laws, regulations, and legislative history," id., but it appears the bulk of it was legislative history. See the description by Griswold, infra note 232 and accompanying text. A description of the collection's various parts as of 1950 (by which point it had been further expanded to 160 volumes) indicates that 107 of the volumes consisted entirely of legislative history and another 27 partly of legislative history. Federal Taxation, 32 Chi. B. Rec. 180 (1950); see also id. at 190 (confirming that the donation to the Court occurred in 1937 and that the collection is "adequately indexed").
   n232. Griswold, supra note 161, at 718. Griswold added that copies of Fox's volumes were available in the libraries at Harvard and two of the U.S. circuit courts. Id.
   n233. E.g., Circular Letter to All United States Attorneys, Circular No. 2730, Re: Memorandum of authorities with respect to the applicability of the Federal Declaratory Judgment Act to suits for the recovery of taxes 10-13 (Aug. 1, 1935), Box 182, Folder 1, Freund Papers, supra note 201. The DOJ Criminal Division and Claims Division would likewise acquire their own legislative history libraries, while DOJ's central library would provide such material to the other divisions. McKavitt, supra note 220, at 276; William Mitchell, Government Law Libraries: Guideposts to Research, 20 Fed. B.J. 281, 283 (1960).

Particularly while in the Appellate Section, I worked in legislative history a lot.  I had heard of Fox's compilations, but I don't recall that I ever accessed them.  I do recall working with Seidman's volumes on legislative history of the tax laws.

Parillo's point in the article is that such compilations back in Fox's day were not readily available to the private tax bar.  For this interested in this niche of history, read Parillo's article.

Does anyone out there remember either Carlton Fox or his legislative histories?

The NYU website, here, has a link to HeinOnLine saying the following:

Taxation & Economic Reform in America Parts I & II, 1781-2010, HeinOnline
"This historical archive contains . . . legislative history materials and other documents. It includes the complete Carlton Fox Collection which contains nearly 42 years of historical legislation related to the internal revenue laws from 1909-1950. It includes more than 100 other legislative histories related to taxation, economic reform, and stimulus plans. ." (HeinOnline)

One other interesting matter related to legislative history is that there was some secret legislative history dealing, as I recall it, primarily for legislation in the 1930s (at least that was the period I accessed).  We had volumes of that secret legislative history in the Appellate Section library and we had to get permission from the appropriate committee if we wanted to cite the legislative history.  I accessed it in a merger case after my reviewer kept sending me back to the history to find some point he insisted was there but which neither I nor he could ever find.

Tax and Bankruptcy AUSA Position in S.D. Alabama (7/29/18)

A DOJ Tax Alumnus has advised that an opening is expected soon for a tax and bankruptcy AUSA position in the USAO for SD Alabama (link here).  I understand that the job is not posted at this time.  The target attorney for the job includes a current Tax Division attorneys, but recent alumni might be considered as well.

Those who may be interested can contact Charles Baer <charlesbaer03216@gmail.com> for information about the job, the USAO and the area.

Pat Mullarkey Retirement Celebration on 9/14/18 - Invitation (7/12/18)

I received this notice from DOJ Tax:

Save the Date:  Retirement Celebration for D. Patrick Mullarkey on 9/14/18 

Pat Mullarkey, Chief of the Civil Trial Section, Northern Region, DOJ Tax Division, is retiring on August 3, 2018, after more than 52 years of outstanding service to the Tax Division.  His retirement celebration will be held on Friday, September 14, 2018, in the Great Hall in the RFK Main Justice Building from 3:00 to 6:00 p.m.    Please Save The Date!   If you would like to receive updates on this event, please send an e-mail to Karen Hamilton, at Karen.C.G.Hamilton@usdoj.gov, or Henry J. Riordan, at Henry.J.Riordan@usdoj.gov.  

Having worked with Pat while I worked at DOJ Tax and have observed him from outside the wall ever since.  I can say that he is the type of public servant we can all be proud of.  Well, done, Pat, and best wishes for retirement.

DOJ Alumni Statement to Support Mueller and Rosenstein (4/16/18)

A DOJ Tax Alum advised that there is a web page where DOJ Alumni can join to indicate support for Robert Mueller and Rod Rosenstein (a DOJ Tax Alum).

The statement is here and has a link to sign up.

There is a related article on Above the Law, here.

JAT Note:  I am not advocating that DOJ Tax Alumni should sign up.  Rather, I just wanted to inform as to the opportunity.

Chris Pietruszkiewicz Named President of University of Evansville (3/31/18)

Chris Pietruszkiewicz has been named President of the University of Evansville.  See the News release here.  Per the release:

Prior to entering academia, Pietruszkiewicz served as a trial attorney in the Tax Division of the United States Department of Justice from 1997 to 2001, receiving the Outstanding Attorney Award in 2000.

Prior to this appointment, Pietruszkiewicz served as dean and professor of law at Stetson University College of Law for six years.

President Trump to Nominate Mike Desmond as IRS Chief Counsel (3/3/18)

President Trump To Name Michael Desmond IRS Chief Counsel (TaxProf Blog 3/3/18), here.  Excerpt:

After serving as a law clerk for a Federal judge in Los Angeles, Mike began his career in tax controversy as a Trial Attorney with the Attorney General’s Honors Program at the Tax Division of the U.S. Department of Justice. 

A great choice.  Congratulations Mike.

I am confident that Mike will serve with competence, honor and integrity.

Harvard Law Professor Frank E.A. Sander Dies (3/1/18)

Harvard Law Today announced here the death of Frank E.A. Sander, former Harvard Law Professor.  Professor Sander was quite accomplished. His Wikipedia page is here.  The Wikipedia page indicates that he served in the Tax Division from 1954-1956.  He later turned his attention later to alternative dispute resolution.

Here is the part from Harvard Law Today about the Tax Division after he concluded his clerkship with Justice Frankfurter:

Before joining the Harvard Law faculty, he worked briefly in the Tax Division of the U.S. Department of Justice and as an attorney at Hill & Barlow in Boston.

Death of Charlotte P. Armstrong (1/13/18)

This obituary, here, was posted on Charlotte P. Armstrong.  Excerpts are:

Charlotte Pierce Armstrong, 90, born March 13, 1927, passed away peacefully  Dec. 8, 2017, at Quarry Hill, where she resided for the past four years. She was a distinguished attorney, adviser on corporate governance, committed philanthropist, and dedicated to academia and women in the workforce. 

* * * * 

In 1953, she received her law degree from Harvard University, in the first class to admit women to the Law School. 

Mrs. Armstrong spent her early career in Washington, D.C., where she served as a trial attorney in the tax division of the U.S Department of Justice. She continued her career at Cravath, Swaine & Moore in New York City. She then became an attorney at the Law Offices of Joseph E. Bachelder, where she handled senior-level employment, compensation arrangements, and claims of business, securities and tax laws of senior executive compensation. Subsequently, Mrs. Armstrong worked at KPMG, LLP as director of practice development and technical resources for the human resources consulting group. She also served as assistant vice president at The Equitable Life Assurance Society. Mrs. Armstrong later became a senior consultant with the Ross Companies and ended her prominent career as senior managing director with the Brock Capital Group LLC in New York City.