Return to Texas Tech Law Home

Professor Bryan Camp

Bryan Camp Camp, Bryan
Professor of Law, 2001
(806) 742-3990 x269
Email:

Admitted to practice in Virginia.

After earning his J.D. and M.A., Professor Camp clerked for the Honorable John P. Wiese of what is now called the Court for Federal Claims. He worked on tax, takings, and government contract cases. Then, as an Assistant County Attorney for Arlington, Virginia, he experienced the myriad delights of providing legal counsel to a local government, ranging from litigating various civil matters to practicing what he likes to call “transactional constitutional law.” Professor Camp left public service briefly to work as an associate in a small Washington D.C. firm. There he divided his time between commercial law, contract law, and estate planning.

After earning his LL.M., Professor Camp returned to public service as a Senior Docket Attorney in the IRS Office of Chief Counsel’s National Office in Washington, D.C.  There he spent eight years delving into the details of subtitle F of the Internal Revenue Code and the subtleties of the Bankruptcy Code, dispensing advice to IRS field attorneys across the country and helping devise appropriate responses to adverse judicial opinions. In 1997 and 1998 Professor Camp was privileged to be a fly on the wall when Congress ground out the Internal Revenue Restructuring and Reform Act of 1998 (the RRA). He participated in the IRS efforts to affect that legislation. After the RRA’s enactment, Professor Camp led the regulatory response to one of the most complicated of the RRA provisions. The resulting proposed regulation was published in the Federal Register on January 2, 2001. During his tenure at the IRS Office of Chief Counsel, Professor Camp received numerous awards, the last one being the 2000 Attorney of the Year for the General Litigation Division.

Since joining Texas Tech, Professor Camp has lectured and written on bankruptcy law and has also written in the areas of tax law, statutory interpretation, constitutional law, and jurisprudence. He is the author of over 23 published articles and treatise chapters, plus numerous shorter works. Since June 2004 he has written 13 articles on tax administration law and policy for Tax Notes, the premier national publication devoted solely to tax issues. In addition, his long-standing and continuing interest in United States legal intellectual history and social history is reflected in his selection to participate in the 2003 Supreme Court Historical Society’s summer seminar and in scholarly presentations before the New York Historical Society and Haverford College.

Professor Camp is currently Chair of the Committee on Individual and Family Taxation of the American Bar Association’s Tax Section. He is frequently invited to present at CLE functions; currently he prepares materials for and presents at two to four CLE meetings per year.

Degrees

B.A. Haverford College, 1982

J.D. University of Virginia, 1987

M.A. University of Virginia, 1988

LL.M. Columbia University, 1993

Courses

Tax, Tax Administration, Administrative Law, Legal History, Civil Procedure

Selected Publications

The Failure of Adversarial Process in the Administrative State, (completed manuscript) (35,000 words) (study of 976 judicial opinions to see whether tax procedure provisions titled "Collection Due Process" provide meaningful review of IRS tax collection activity).

The Play's The Thing: A Theory of Taxing Virtual Worlds, 59 Hastings L. J. 1 (2007)(an appraisal of the fundamental distinction between legal and economic conceptions of income through the lens of taxpayer activities solely with virtual world environments such as World of Warcraft and Second Life).

Proceduralist Reflections on Home Mortgage Foreclosures 117 Tax Notes 483 (October 29, 2007) (5,000 words) (commenting on the futility of proposed legislation to provide relief for the targeted taxpayer population because of procedural barriers).

The Mysteries of Erroneous Refunds, 114 Tax Notes 231 (2007 )(exposing a little known hole in the IRS collection system and proposing legislative fix).

The Equal Protection Problem in Innocent Spouse Procedures, 112 Tax Notes 281 (2006) (demonstrating an unintended problem created by the interplay of three tax administration doctrines—Congress enacted a legislative fix in 2007).

The Function of Forms, 110 Tax Notes 531 (2006 )(exploring the role of IRS forms in tax administration and whether courts should take a functional or formal approach to interpreting them).

The Unhappy Marriage of Law and Equity in Section 6015, 108 Tax Notes 1307 (2005) (reviewing the history and purpose of the joint and several liability for married couples).

Tax Administration As Inquisitorial Process & the Partial Paradigm Shift of the IRS Restructuring and Reform Act of 1998, 56 Fla. L. Rev. 1-133 (2004)(reconceiving 1998 legislation as unwittingly inserting adversarial provisions into an otherwise inquisitorial agency process).

Form Over Function in Fifth Circuit Tax Cases, 2001-2002, 34 Texas Tech Law Rev. 733 (Winter 2003) (critiquing Fifth Circuit Tax cases for excessive formalism) (Winner of Review's Best Article award for book).

Bound By the BAP: The Stare Decisis Effects of BAP Decisions, 34 San Diego L. Rev. 1643 (Fall 1997) (proposing proper role for Bankruptcy Appellate Panel decisions).

Dual Construction of RICO: The Road Not Taken in Reves, 51 Wash. & Lee L. Rev. 61 (Winter 1994 )(proposing anti-rule-of-lenity for statutory construction of RICO).

Professor Camp's SSRN Author page is http://ssrn.com/author=364489

For a full bibliography, click here .