UC Law SF Tax Law Program Produces Highly Employable Graduates

The UC Law SF tax law concentration class of 2022 gathered for a graduation and awards ceremony in May.

By the time they finish law school, most UC Law SF tax law concentration students already have jobs lined up.

Emma Li, JD ’22, was offered a job at Ernst & Young before receiving her diploma last May. “All the classmates I talk to have jobs before they graduate,” Li said. “I think that’s really rare for law students.”

An expansive curriculum, strong alumni network, and immersive experiential learning opportunities are among the factors that make UC Law SF tax law students highly employable, according to Heather Field, law professor and co-director of the UC Law SF Center on Tax Law.

“Employers come here specifically to hire our tax students, including those who don’t typically hire out of JD programs because they generally prefer LLM graduates,” Field said. “They come here because they know they’re getting graduates who are well prepared for tax careers.”

Its courses, experiential learning offerings, and career development support have helped propel UC Law SF to rank as one of the top 20 tax law programs in the nation, according to U.S. News and World Report’s 2023 rankings.

The curriculum includes courses on corporate and partnership tax, foreign transactions and investments, family wealth transfers, estate planning, nonprofit organizations, and tax collection procedures – to name a few. Tax law students also gain hands-on experience in courses such as the business tax practicum and low-income taxpayer clinic.

In a tax concentration seminar offered each academic year, students hear from the nation’s leading tax law scholars and pursue their own research on topics such as how undocumented immigrants and non-fungible tokens (NFTs) are taxed.

It’s that broad base of knowledge that attracts representatives from major tax firms to recruit graduating UC Law SF students.

“We think tax students at Hastings are just fantastic,” said Hazel Dolio Tag-at, a 2002 Hastings alumna who now works as a managing director at Andersen Tax LLC. “They have broad experience in different aspects of tax – from individual to estate transfers to gifts to commercial, corporate, and partnerships.”

Tag-at said UC Law SF students often come across as top candidates for jobs at her firm. “The Hastings students are consistently well prepared – from their resume and cover letter to presentation in the interview,” she said. “I really commend the Career Development Office for continuing that strong program of getting students ready to nail the interview.”

Nick Bondar-Netis, who graduated from the UC Law SF tax law program in 2014 and now works as a senior manager at Ernst & Young in San Jose, said he returns to his alma mater each year to recruit graduating students because they possess the right mix of skills, knowledge, and experience to serve his firm’s clients.

“I think the tax offerings at UC Law SF focus on a lot of very practical topics and applications of law that we often run into in our practice,” Netis said.

UC Law SF alum Katie Kronick, JD ’21, credits the tax law program with helping her excel in her work as associate attorney with McDermott Will & Emery, where she assists high net-worth individuals on issues concerning wealth transfers, estate and gift taxation. She said, “I work with a group of experienced and sophisticated tax and estate planning attorneys, but I have been able to adjust to the steep learning curve of ‘Big Law’ in large part thanks to my experience in the tax law concentration.”

As part of the Center on Tax Law’s 2022 Speaker Series, Professor Steven Dean of the Brooklyn School of Law will give a lecture on “For Profit Philanthropy: Elite Power and the Threat of Limited Liability Companies, Donor-Advised Funds, and Strategic Corporate Giving” on Tuesday, Oct. 25. Find more information here.