Building tax knowledge is valuable, regardless of whether it’s an area students plan to specialize in or not. No matter what you're going to practice in law, tax is going to be there. Either you need to know what to do about it or with it, or you need to know what questions to ask and who to ask.
Assistant Professor Orli Oren-Kolbinger is passionate about tax law and—because of her engaging approach to teaching through active learning—many Oregon Law students also become enthusiastic about this area of the law that is sometimes perceived to be dry.
Sparking Student Interest
In Professor Oren-Kolbinger’s Tax Policy Seminar, students select a tax policy research question that sparks their interest and explore it through a series of structured exercises designed to build both doctrinal understanding and practical legal skills. Students develop competencies in project management, academic legal writing, oral advocacy, and critical analysis. They evaluate how the law applies to their chosen topic, identify areas for improvement, and learn how to communicate complex ideas effectively.
“As a student, there is the fear of failure or how people will think about you when you’re presenting your idea. You don’t know whether you will get pushback. My answer to that student is that people might like your idea, or they might not. But if you don't join the conversation and don't proactively communicate your ideas, you will never know. It’s going to be harder to change your world just from having your paper in your computer,” Oren-Kolbinger said.
Engaging Exercises
Throughout the course, students engage in exercises that include drafting a paper that satisfies the Oregon State Bar’s legal writing requirement. They create and publicly present a poster on a tax policy question, which challenges them to defend their research and respond to questions or counterarguments—an experience that pushes them beyond their comfort zone and prepares them for authentic legal discourse.
Students also experiment with leading a class in small groups, with tasks that include creating a lesson plan, facilitating discussion, and designing a hands-on activity so they can connect the legal framework with real-world tax issues, further building mastery of the subject.
"Building tax knowledge is valuable, regardless of whether it’s an area students plan to specialize in or not,” Oren-Kolbinger noted. “No matter what you're going to practice in law, tax is going to be there. Either you need to know what to do about it or with it, or you need to know what questions to ask and who to ask.”