Erick J. Sam

Erick J. Sam is a legal scholar who works on fundamental issues in tax law and policy, often by employing tools from philosophy and economic theory. He teaches in the areas of tax and contracts. He is Associate Professor of Law at the University of Utah, S.J. Quinney College of Law, as well as an affiliated scholar with the Law and Philosophy Program at Columbia Law School. Erick was previously a fellow at the NYU School of Law and visiting scholar at NYU Department of Philosophy. He received his PhD in Philosophy from Duke University, his JD from Yale Law School, and graduated Phi Beta Kappa and magna cum laude in Philosophy and in Economics from Brown University. After law school, he practiced as a tax attorney in the New York office of the law firm Sullivan and Cromwell. His work has appeared or is forthcoming in the Utah Law Review; the peer-reviewed legal philosophy journal, the Canadian Journal of Law and Jurisprudence; the Washington University Jurisprudence Review; and the peer-reviewed tax law journal, the Florida Tax Review. In his current research, he (1) explores the optimal institutional approach to distribution policy given epistemic limitations on our foreknowledge; and (2) develops some of the key legal, normative, and institutional dimensions of a theory of global tax justice; among other things. In his spare time, Erick enjoys composing and performing classical, jazz, and instrumental guitar music, and playing chess.