On March 29, the Jerome Manning ’52 Tax Salon celebrated its first in-person meeting with a conversation between United States Tax Court Judge Juan Vasquez LLM ’78 and Brant Hellwig LLM ’00, faculty director of NYU Law’s Graduate Tax Program.
During his remarks, Vasquez recalled his time at the Law School, which included taking a capstone estate planning course taught by longtime adjunct and NYU Law Life Trustee Jerome Manning ’52, for whom the salon is named. “I was so impressed by the quality of the [program] and how smart the students were,” said Vasquez who noted that his classmate Thomas Wells LLM ’78 was also later appointed to the federal tax bench.
The salon was founded in 2022 thanks to a gift from Manning, a former lawyer at Stroock & Stroock & Lavan, who specializes in estate planning. In addition to serving as an adjunct professor at the Law School for 40 years, Manning also wrote a definitive treatise on estate planning, Manning on Estate Planning, now in its seventh edition. The salon’s inaugural session, which featured former IRS Commissioner Charles Rettig LLM ’82, was held remotely last year due to the pandemic.
After earning his LLM, Vasquez served as a trial attorney for the Internal Revenue Service and later worked in private practice. In 1995, he was appointed to the federal tax bench by President Bill Clinton. Vasquez was renominated by President Barack Obama in 2010 and confirmed in 2011. He assumed senior status in 2018.
Vasquez said that his connection to the Law School runs deep, noting that his two sons, Juan Vasquez Jr. LLM ’02 and Jaime Vasquez LLM ’09, were in the audience that day. “NYU really prepared me to take on whatever came at me,” said Vasquez.
Watch video of the discussion:
Posted June 13, 2023.