About

The Paul J. Hartman State & Local Tax Forum was established in 1993 in Nashville, Tennessee.  Since that time, the Board of Trustees and Advisory Board have worked together to provide industry, practitioners and state revenue employees the opportunity to participate in a quality forum exploring significant national developments and trends in state and local taxation. The Forum features speakers with the knowledge, expertise, and communication skills to impart current developments as well as the practical solutions and planning opportunities in structuring and reporting state and local tax transactions.

Professor Paul J. Hartman joined Vanderbilt’s law faculty in 1949 and he, along with Dean John Wade and fellow law professors Paul Sanders, Ted Smedley and Herman Trautman, formed a core group of faculty who remained at the law school for more than 20 years and were responsible for the school’s rise to national stature.  “For many students, [Dean John] Wade was the brain of the School, and [Paul] Hartman was its soul,” Don Welch wrote in his history, The Vanderbilt Law School:  Aspirations and Realities (Vanderbilt University Press, 2007).

Professor Hartman was a nationally recognized authority in state and local taxation.  Although he retired in 1976, he continued teaching at the law school until 1988.  Professor Hartman was honored in 1975, shortly before his retirement, when the law school’s “Outstanding Professor” award was named after him.  The name of another legendary teacher, Professor Don Hall, was added to the award in 2007; it is now known as the Hall-Hartman Award.