Michelle Lyon Drumbl is the Director of the Tax Clinic and Robert O. Bentley Professor of Law at Washington and Lee University.  Her teaching and research interests focus on federal income taxation of individuals, tax procedure, and tax policy.

As Director of the Tax Clinic, Professor Drumbl oversees students as they provide pro bono representation for low-income taxpayers who have post-filing controversies with the Internal Revenue Service and educate taxpayers about their tax rights and responsibilities. Under Professor Drumbl's supervision, clinic students represent clients before the IRS in examinations, collections, appeals, and a variety of other matters. The Tax Clinic also represents clients in deficiency cases in U.S. Tax Court and tax refund litigation in Federal District Court.  Since 2008, the Tax Clinic has been awarded more than $800,000 in federal funds from the Internal Revenue Service's Low Income Taxpayer Clinic grant program.

Professor Drumbl's scholarship focuses on the intersection of low-income taxpayers and fiscal policy, exploring such issues as filing status, innocent spouse relief, and return preparer fraud. Her book, Tax Credits for the Working Poor: A Call for Reform (Cambridge University Press, 2019) identifies shortcomings in how the United States delivers social benefits through its tax system and gazes elsewhere - to programs abroad - to reimagine possibilities for improving administration of the earned income tax credit and bolstering the credit's effectiveness.

Her articles have appeared or are forthcoming in the Temple Law Review, Tax Notes, the Florida Tax Review, the Columbia Journal of Tax Law, the Pittsburgh Tax Review, and the eJournal of Tax Research.  Her article examining the nature and nuance of earned income tax credit noncompliance, Beyond Polemics: Poverty, Taxes, and Noncompliance, was awarded the Cedric Sandford Medal for best paper at the 12th International Conference on Tax Administration in Sydney.

Professor Drumbl is a guest blogger on Procedurally Taxing, has contributed as a chapter author in several editions of the American Bar Association Section of Taxation's practitioner reference book, Effectively Representing Your Client Before the IRS, and co-authored Skills & Values: Federal Income Taxation (LexisNexis, 2011).

Professor Drumbl received an LL.M. in Taxation from New York University, a J.D. with honors from George Washington University, and a B.A. in Political Science from Emory University.  Prior to the joining the faculty, Professor Drumbl was an attorney at the IRS Office of Chief Counsel, where her work focused on the legal interpretation of bilateral income tax treaties and other cross-border taxation issues for the U.S. government.  Her prior private practice experience includes tax controversy work and tax planning.  She is a member of the bar in Virginia and Arkansas.

Professor Francine J. Lipman brings to the Boyd School of Law an exceptional record as an accountant, a lawyer, a teacher, and a scholar. After working as a CPA in an international accounting firm and as the Chief Financial Officer for a chain of retail jewelry stores, Professor Lipman turned to the law. She served as the Editor in Chief of the UC Davis Law Review. She was recognized as an outstanding law student and a member of the Order of the Coif.  

She was a tax law review scholar in NYU’s graduate tax law program, where she practiced law with O’Melveny & Myers LLP and Irell & Manella LLP. Professor Lipman joined Chapman University’s School of Business and Economics faculties in 2001 and the School of Law in 2003. Professor Lipman is an elected member of the American Law Institute, the American College of Tax Counsel, the American Bar Foundation, and an editor and former committee chair for the American Bar Association’s Tax Section. She has been a visiting professor at UC Hastings College of Law and the University of Nevada, Las Vegas. In 2016, Governor Brian Sandoval was appointed, and in 2020 Governor Steve Sisolak reappointed Professor Lipman to serve as Nevada Tax Commissioner. The Nevada Tax Commission consists of eight Nevadans with various professional and business backgrounds. 

The Commissioners supervise the overall administration and operations of the Nevada Department of Taxation. Professor Lipman has written extensively on tax and accounting issues for legal journals, including the Wisconsin Law Review, Florida Tax Review, Virginia Tax Review, SMU Law Review, Nevada Law Journal, American University Law Review, Harvard Environmental Law Review, Harvard Latino Law Review, Harvard Journal on Legislation, The Tax Lawyer, The Practical Tax Lawyer, Taxes and Tax Notes. Professor Lipman is a frequent speaker on tax subjects to law and business groups.