Ferguson, M. Carr

Lewis, Jeffrey E.

Lind, Stephen A.

Maxfield, Guy B.

English

University of Florida Levin College of Law

Florida Tax Review Volume 2 Article 7 2023 Dedication to James J. Freeland Jeffrey E. Lewis Guy B. Maxfield M. Carr Ferguson Stephen A. Lind Follow this and additional works at: https://scholarship.law.ufl.edu/ftr Recommended Citation Lewis, Jeffrey E.; Maxfield, Guy B.; Ferguson, M. Carr; and Lind, Stephen A. (2023) "Dedication to James J. Freeland," Florida Tax Review: Vol. 2, Article 7. Available at: https://scholarship.law.ufl.edu/ftr/vol2/iss1/7 This Article is brought to you for free and open access by UF Law Scholarship Repository. It has been accepted for inclusion in Florida Tax Review by an authorized editor of UF Law Scholarship Repository. For more information, please contact jessicaejoseph@law.ufl.edu. FLORIDA TAX REVIEWVOLUME 2 1995 NUMBER 7At the conclusion of the fall 1994 semester, Professor James J. (Jack)Freeland retired from his position as Distinguished Service Professor at theUniversity of Florida College of Law. Professor Freeland is a graduate of thislaw school and served as a member of its tax faculty for more than 35 years.The Florida Tax Review is pleased to honor Professor Freeland on hisretirement. Four of his former colleagues, Dean Jeffrey E. Lewis of theUniversity of Florida College of Law, Professor Guy B. Maxfield of NewYork University School of Law, M. Carr Ferguson, Esq., of the law firm ofDavis, Polk & Wardwell, New York, and Professor Stephen A. Lind of theUniversity of Florida and the University of California, Hastings College ofthe Law, reflect below on their long associations with Professor Freeland.-~ H-THIS ISSUE OF THEFLORIDA TAX REVIEWIS DEDICATED TOJAMES J. FREELANDFlorida Tax ReviewJack Freeland's tenure as a member of the faculty at the Universityof Florida began in 1957. By every measure, Jack has distinguished himselfas a scholar and a teacher. He has brought great distinction to his alma mater.Thousands of students over the years have had the benefit of his tutelage inthe classroom. Jack is a charismatic and challenging teacher. His scholarshiphas provided guidance to lawyers and law students for decades. Jack'sretirement was a great loss to the law school, but his contributions will belong lasting. And Jack has been a good friend to so many of us over theyears. Thank you, Jack.Jeffrey E. LewisWhat is an institution? Webster's Ninth New Collegiate Dictionarystates: "also: something or someone firmly associated with a place or thing."James J. ("Jack" or "JJ") certainly fits the definition. He is firmly associated,and has been for 37 years, with the law school at the University of Florida;and the thing that he has been firmly associated with is tax law. AlthoughJack has made the decision to retire, he cannot cease being an institution.Institutions take on a life of their own, and as years pass, they seem to growin stature, complexity, intensity, and fame.As long ago as 1962, when I first was introduced to the institutionthat was Jack Freeland, he was already a formidable structure. Over the past33 years, each time I have seen him, he has grown even more impressively.Jack's foundation, however, began well before 1962. Perhaps it was atSewanee Military Academy that Jack started on the road to becoming aninstitution. He spent about two years in the United States Navy-doing, whatelse-but as a corpsman, helping others. After completing his military duty,Jack spent five years at Duke University. He received his Bachelor's Degreein 1950 and finished his first year of law school at Duke. Upon being advisedthat if he wanted to practice law in Florida, he should attend the Universityof Florida law school, Jack transferred and received his Juris Doctor degreein 1954.The next three years were spent practicing tax law with Dowling &Culverhouse in Miami. It was in 1957 that Jack began his life-long love-teaching and writing about taxes. From the time he began as a neophyteteacher to his last class some 37 years later, Jack was recognized as a superbteacher. Indeed, many of his former students who continued their educationat New York University (which Jack affectionately called the "motherchurch") said that it was Jack who instilled in them the desire to pursue theworld of tax for their professional lives.It was not only as a teacher that Jack developed his reputation.During his time at Florida (with side jaunts to New York, Arizona, andHolland), Jack wrote or was the co-author of 13 books and 20 articles! The[Vol 2:7Dedication: James J. Freelandbreath of topics covered by Jack ranges from the intricacies of corporate taxto the effect of distributions in kind by an estate or trust. (It was on this lasttopic that Jack's observations led to an amendment of the statute.)During this period, Jack also was an administrator. In 1974, he, alongwith Dick Stephens, founded the Graduate Tax Program at the University ofFlorida College of Law, which confers the LL.M. (in Taxation) degree. Forsome five years, Jack served as director of the program and was responsiblefor faculty recruitment, student placement, fund raising, and all the otherthings that administrators do to fill up their time. With delight, Jack was ableto return in 1982 to full-time writing and teaching.This short biographical statement does not do justice to a man whobecame an institution. For those of us who have been privileged to share aglass of pop at four in the morning discussing life in all of its fullness withJack, he will always seem larger than life itself. While he may be retired, hewill never be retiring.Guy B. MaxfieldJack's arrival at New York University in the fall of 1962 made animmediate and vivid impression on his new colleagues and students. Most ofthe denizens of Greenwich Village and Vanderbilt Hall were Yankees of onestripe or another, and Jack struck our northern eyes as a dashing, if somewhatrumpled, Confederate cavalry officer. His softened vowels fell charmingly onour ears, and his speech was laced with surprising turns of phrase, metaphors,and shimmering verbal pictures-the match of e.e. cummings or any othervillage denizen and far beyond the grayer, linear phrasing of his new taxcolleagues.What we could learn of his background only fed the stories thatsprang up in his footsteps through Washington Square and Vanderbilt Hall.Fascinating vignettes of his childhood, adventures in and out of militaryschool, Duke, the University of Florida, and of his early days as a lawyerworking with two of the most colorful and unlikely law partners in Floridaquickly endeared him to all of us. Jack's imagery of piloting an old Buickjust under the speed of sound, up and down the State, driven by thecompeting demands of his two Hughs-Dowling and Culverhouse-wasparticularly memorable to me, since, at about the same time Jack must havebeen driving and sleeping in that car, Hugh Dowling and I, after trying a caseagainst each other in Birmingham, had discussed joining in practice. As Iheard Jack's stories, I felt a sense of relief that we had not met until yearslater, in another stage of our lives.He brought to New York not just the heady perfume of North Floridalife and his beautiful, delightful family, but, as well, the swagger, uninhibitedhumor, and individualism that sprang from his roots-and a pride in his work19951Florida Tax Reviewthat drove him to the top. All of this he brought into his classrooms. TheNYU Graduate Tax Program, founded 14 years earlier by the legendary JerryWallace, demanded the best of its students and its teachers alike. Intensivepreparation for class was taken for granted. So was gifted teaching. Jackexceeded all expectations. In a faculty of great teachers, Jack's classes weresought out and over-enrolled.It was no wonder. He would plow the rockiest, thinnest tax soil andgrow not brambles but rich, colorful fruit. He taught always through Socraticdialogues based on assigned problems, a technique that in his classes, led tounderstanding rather than deeper mysteries. An example springs to mind froma subject we both, perhaps perversely, loved to teach and write about: incometaxation of estates and trusts. A few years before Jack's arrival, an NYUstudent working through a complex problem of distributable net income wasasked "What's your DNI?" He responded miserably, "Professor, I don't knowmy DNI from my ASS." Such defeats were not permitted in Jack's class.Before tackling this same problem a few years later, Jack turned DNI into a"rainbow of assorted flavors of income" (an unforgettable, mixed metaphor,typical of Jack's humor and genius) and, through baby steps, gave even theslower students a sense of having mastered the basic concepts. Then he wouldgrab the chalk, whirl around to the board, shirttail dangerously nearliberation, and commence his questions, cocking his ear quizzically, issuinga warning "Huh?" to an errant answer and, in the end, leaving the wholeclass convinced that determining fiduciary and beneficiary taxable income isa delicious piece of cake. From my office next to his, I remember the streamof students, animated discussions and bursts of laughter coming from hisroom.Jack and his wife and children missed home. Jack tried living in theVillage, they tried a New Jersey suburb. He tried commuting in the car of acolleague who drove with such suicidal abandon that Jack's low-flying daysdown the Florida highways paled in memory to a sedate creep. He loved hisclasses, his many new friends, and the resources of NYU, but finally decidedto go home to Gainesville. When he left, it was as if the Pied Piper hadended his concert. We missed him very much. I have been fortunate toremain in touch with him through our collaborations in writing and speaking.He was and is a new adventure every time I am in his company. May hisrainbow follow him wherever he goes!M. Carr FergusonWhen I first learned that Jack Freeland was planning to retire, I wasshocked. I doubt that I was alone in thinking that Jack would be carried feetfirst out of the University of Florida College of Law. I'm glad that I'm not[VoL 2:7Dedication: James J. Freelandwriting an obituary for Jack, but that instead I'm writing some words ofthanks to him on his retirement.As a colleague, a co-author, and in many ways a student of Jack's,there is much to thank him for. First, thanks for his pioneering work on anddedication to the LL.M. Program in Taxation at the University of Florida.Jack and Dick Stephens overcame what were almost insurmountable obstaclesin creating an advanced tax law program. It is safe to say the program wouldnot now exist, if it were not for their joint perseverance. Indeed, it was duringJack's five years as Director of the program that it grew from a young upstartto one of the highest ranked programs in the country.Thanks, too, for including me to work with him and Dick Stephenson an income tax casebook that, during its 23 year life span, has sold inexcess of two hundred thousand copies. The book had its origins in teachingmaterials developed by Jack and Dick. Many of the cases and problems foundin those materials are still in the casebook because they have endured aseffective teaching aids.The aspect of Jack's career for which he deserves the most thanks,however, is one that I have only vicariously experienced. Although I'velearned a lot from Jack, I've never taken a law school course from him. Butthat doesn't mean that I am unaware of his teaching style and ability. Myintroduction to Jack came not from a personal meeting, but when I filled histeaching slot when he was visiting another law school. When I beganteaching an advanced tax course, students in the class began using avocabulary that sounded like a foreign language to me. I soon discovered"JJ's tax language"-a series of terms he used in teaching that werehumorous, clever, memorable, and just down-right effective in teaching taxlaw. Terms such as the "the gotcha" for the concept of recapture and "thehotchpot" for sorting out tax consequences under section 1231, and "thesection 67 haircut" are a few in a long list. I am sorry that I never took theopportunity to take one of his courses-but as another colleague said year'sago---"one can't do that because one would end up only imitating him, andno one could be as good as the real thing." So, Jack, on behalf of thethousands of students that you have taught over the years for whom a coursefrom J.J. was truly a rewarding and memorable experience-thank you.I hope that he enjoys his retirement years. Part of that enjoymentshould come from the well deserved pride he can take in the significantcontributions he has made to the tax law, our graduate tax program, and hismany students.Stephen A. Lind19951

Dedication to James J. Freeland

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Dedication to James J. Freeland

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