Professor Michelle Layser joined the Illinois Law School faculty in fall 2018, teaching partnership taxation, state and local taxation and property law. Before coming to Illinois, Professor Layser spent two years at the Georgetown University Law Center as a Law Research Fellow and Adjunct Professor of Law.
Professor Layser has broad research interests at the intersection of tax law and social policy. Major themes in her research include the use of tax expenditures to deliver public goods, often by encouraging partnerships between governments and private actors, and the effect of such tax expenditures on economic inequality. Her current research looks at how tax law is used to encourage private investment in housing and community development. Past works have looked at the unequal taxation of same-sex families, the potential role of non-profits in supporting news production, tax incentives for investment in clean energy technologies, and how tax law rewards residential segregation.
Professor Layser earned her LL.M. in Taxation from New York University. She received her JD from the University of Southern California Gould School of Law, where she graduated order of the coif. While in law school, she served on the board of the Southern California Law Review. She earned her BA with honors from the University of Pennsylvania.
Professor Layser has worked as a transactional associate at Latham & Watkins LLP (Los Angeles, Washington D.C.) and as a managing editor at Bloomberg BNA.
