MARVIN CHIRELSTEIN

CHIRELSTEIN--Marvin A.

Columbia Law School Professor Emeritus Marvin A. Chirelstein, a leading scholar of federal taxation, corporate law, and contracts whose textbooks are still used by students across the country, died on February 16. He was 86. Chirelstein first joined Columbia Law School in 1954 to work on the Federal Income Tax Project under Dean William C. Warren. He then joined the government as an attorney in the U.S. Department of the Treasury and later taught at Rutgers School of Law and Yale Law School. Chirelstein returned to Columbia Law School as a visiting professor in 1981 and became a full-time faculty member in 1984. Two years later, he was named the first Isidor and Seville Sulzbacher Professor of Law, an appointment announced by then-Columbia University President Michael I. Sovern. In addition to being a highly sought after academic expert on taxation, contracts, and corporate law, Chirelstein was a beloved professor who once taught a seminar on the legal side of one of his favorite sports: boxing. A music lover who played the violin, he was known for his dry sense of humor and quiet wit and was adored by students. Two of his textbooks, Concepts and Case Analysis in the Law of Contracts and Federal Income Taxation: A Law Students Guide to the Leading Cases and Concepts, have guided generations of future lawyers through the complexities of the law. A third, Cases and Materials on Corporate Finance, opened the way to interdisciplinary analysis of corporate law. Teaching was Chirelsteins passion, in addition to tax. Upon his appointment to the faculty in 1984, Chirelstein told the Columbia Law School News that he considered himself an educator at heart. As a professor at Yale Law School from 1965 to 1981, Chirelstein taught three future Columbia Law faculty colleagues: John C. Coffee Jr., Merritt B. Fox, and Ronald J. Gilson. He also taught future U.S. President Bill Clinton, who commented: "I had the privilege of having Professor Chirelstein for both Tax Law and Corporate Finance at Yale--he was memorably patient with me in the former, and seemed pleased when I redeemed myself in the latter. He had a great sense of humor, forgiving me for reading One Hundred Years of Solitude in class and laughing at my answer when asked how I could be such a bad tax student and do so well in corporate finance: I said it was a lot like politics--someone's trying to gain at someone else's expense, and there have to be rules to avoid fraud and violence. It was the beginning of a long, if long distance, friendship. Professor Chirelstein, as I neared graduation, told me about a teaching vacancy at the University of Arkansas Law School in Fayetteville, and recommended me for a job that enriched and changed my life. I'll always be grateful for his gifted teaching, endless curiosity, and generous spirit." For Prof. Fox, Chirelstein first kindled his interest in corporate finance. "Students looked forward to going to Chirelsteins class every day, Fox said. He was remarkably incisive and sophisticated in his treatment of the issues, while at the same time being incredibly funny. It is a source of real pleasure that my son, Peter Fox 09, was able to have the same experience, taking tax with Chirelstein here at Columbia Law School. A trusted adviser, Chirelstein was often asked to provide commentary on taxation policies or reform efforts. In a 1994 Letter to the Editor published in The New York Times, Chirelstein supported President Clintons progressive taxation. . . . the distribution of national income has grown increasingly unequal over the last dozen years, at least in part as a consequence of the tax legislation that President Reagan put over on a gullible public, Chirelstein wrote in the Times. We are constantly told that American voters are disaffected, that they suffer from a political malaise, that they no longer trust their political leaders, and so on. Surely one reason is a growing sense that economic progress has been for the few. Progressive taxation won't solve the problem. But it helps, both actually and as a symbol of our national ideals. On Tax Day in 1998, Chirelstein appeared on PBS NewsHour with Jim Lehrer to again defend the U.S. tax system despite its complexities, which he attributed to Congress trying to administer too many programs through the tax code. We collect a trillion, three hundred billion dollars a year through the administration of our tax laws, and thats done largely by voluntary compliance, he said. I think anyone would regard that as an immense achievement. Professor John Coffee, who first met Chirelstein as a student at Yale Law School said Chirelstein was a Man for All Seasons. His students immediately learned that he had a martini-dry wit, a razor-sharp mind, but a uniquely self-effacing teaching method under which he convinced students that he needed their help to solve a seemingly simple problem on the blackboard, Coffee recalled. During the 1970s, his influential work with Victor Brudney illuminated the field of corporate law, but also showed that he was committed to fairness and preferred background norms of equality and equal treatment. Chirelstein graduated from the University of California, Berkeley, in 1950. He earned his J.D. from the University of Chicago Law School in 1953 and served as editor-in-chief of the University of Chicago Law Review. He is survived by his wife, Ellen, and his son, Paul. Our hearts are filled with sorrow at the passing of this great man.