Georgia Law professor receives National Tax Association's highest honor

Abstract

November 21, 2008

Writer/Contact: Cindy Herndon, 706/542-5172, cindyh@uga.edu

Georgia Law professor receives National Tax Association's highest honor

Athens, Ga. - Today, University of Georgia School of Law Shackelford Distinguished Professor of Taxation Law Walter Hellerstein was presented with the National Tax Association's most prestigious award, the Daniel M. Holland Medal for distinguished lifetime contributions to the study and practice of public finance.

Hellerstein is widely regarded as the nation's leading academic authority on state and local taxation. He joined the Georgia Law faculty in 1978 and was named the Francis Shackelford Distinguished Professor in 1999. He teaches in the areas of state and local taxation, international taxation and federal income taxation.

Recently, Hellerstein was named the nation's most influential academic in state and local taxation by State Tax Notes and received BNA Tax Management's Franklin C. Latcham Award for Distinguished Service in State and Local Tax Law.

Hellerstein's scholarship includes the leading treatise in the state tax field, which is frequently cited by the U.S. Supreme Court and other tribunals; the leading casebook on state and local taxation; and more than 100 articles in professional journals addressing state and local tax issues. He has also practiced extensively in the state tax field, having been involved in numerous state tax cases before the U.S. Supreme Court, including two cases he successfully argued. He is currently an academic advisor to the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development on cross-border consumption tax issues, and he has consulted with the United Nations and the World Trade Organization on tax issues.

Prior to joining the Georgia Law faculty, Hellerstein taught at the University of Chicago Law School, worked at the Washington, D.C., law firm of Covington & Burling and clerked for Judge Henry J. Friendly of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 2nd Circuit. He graduated magna cum laude with his bachelor's degree from Harvard, where he was elected to Phi Beta Kappa. He earned his law degree from the University of Chicago, where he was editor in chief of the University of Chicago Law Review and was inducted into the Order of the Coif.

The NTA began presenting the Holland Medal in 1993 in honor of Dan Holland, a professor of economics at MIT, who had a lifelong interest in all aspects of public finance.

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