Les Book is a member of the faculty at Villanova Charles Widger Law School, where he is a Professor of Law. In addition to his faculty appointment, Professor Book has held administrative positions as the initial Faculty Director of Villanova’s innovative online Graduate Tax Program, Director of Villanova’s Graduate Tax Program, and prior to that, as Director of the Law School’s Low Income Taxpayer Clinic. Before he joined Villanova, he was an associate at Davis Polk & Wardwell and at Baker & McKenzie in New York and London, and he was an Assistant Clinical Professor at Quinnipiac University School of Law in Hamden, CT. He also served as a Professor in Residence with the IRS, Taxpayer Advocate Service in 2019.
He is a national authority on tax procedure and issues affecting the low income taxpayer community. He is updating and rewriting the Thomson Reuters treatise, IRS Practice and Procedure, originally authored by his former colleague, the late Michael Saltzman. Book has written extensively on tax procedure, the relationship of IRS agency actions and broader principles of administrative law, on the intersection of tax and poverty law, and on tax compliance. Book, a frequent speaker and panelist at bar associations and public interest organizations, has testified before Congress and the Treasury Department on the fair administration of our nation’s tax laws, and has appeared as an expert witness in international and federal income tax controversies. He is the 2007 ABA Tax Section Spragens Pro Bono Award winner for his outstanding and sustained commitment to pro bono services with respect to federal tax law, and is a fellow of the American College of Tax Counsel.
Professor Book received his B.A. from Franklin & Marshall College (magna cum laude), his J.D. from Stanford University School of Law, and his LL.M (Taxation) from New York University School of Law. At Stanford Law School, he was a founding editor of the Stanford Law & Policy Review, and at New York University School of Law he was a student-editor at the Tax Law Review.
