Lawrence A. Zelenak
Pamela B. Gann Professor of Law

Lawrence Zelenak teaches income tax, corporate tax, and a tax policy seminar. His publications include numerous articles on tax policy issues and a treatise on federal income taxation of individuals. His most recent book is Learning to Love Form 1040: Two Cheers for the Return-Based Mass Income Tax (University of Chicago Press, 2013).

Zelenak’s recent articles include “Choosing Between Tax and Nontax Delivery Mechanisms for Health Insurance Subsidies,” 65 Tax Law Review 723-747 (2012); “Custom and the Rule of Law in the Administration of the Income Tax,” 62 Duke Law Journal 829-855 (2012); “The Great American Tax Novel,” 110 Michigan Law Review 969-984 (2012) (reviewing David Foster Wallace, The Pale King (2011)); and “Tax Scholarship: Useful and Useless,” 130 Tax Notes 1337-1341 (2011).

Prior to joining Duke Law in 2003, Zelenak was a member of the Columbia Law School faculty. Earlier he was a faculty member at the University of North Carolina School of Law; professor in residence at the Office of the Chief Counsel, Internal Revenue Service, Washington, D.C.; an assistant professor at Lewis and Clark Law School in Portland, Oregon; and an associate with the firm of LeSourd and Patten in Seattle. He has also been a visiting professor at the University of Utah and Northwestern University schools of law.

Zelenak received his B.A., summa cum laude, from the University of Santa Clara, and his J.D., magna cum laude, from Harvard Law School in 1979.

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