Mike Waalkes was quoted in a Bloomberg Tax article titled “Six Years In: What Lawyers Want from Tax Court’s DAWSON System.”
The article addresses practitioner feedback on the case filing and management site for the U.S. Tax Court, DAWSON. Short for “Docket Access Within a Secure Online Network,” the site launched in late 2020 and was named after the longest-serving Tax Court Judge, Judge Howard A. Dawson, Jr., who was renowned for his scrupulous recordkeeping.
Six years after its inception, DAWSON is largely well-regarded by practitioners. However, they also feel that the system has room for improvement.
In response Tax Court Judge Ronald L. Buch's request for feedback from practitioners, Mike suggested that DAWSON's search function for opinions and orders could be refined, and access to post-trial briefing could be streamlined by bypassing visits to specific dockets.
The primary concerns practitioners cite center around transparency, accessibility, and missing functionalities. As chair of Tax Court's technology committee, Judge Buch works with the team that oversees DAWSON to implement suggestions from practitioners and continually refine the site.
Information within the Tax Court can be siloed at times. Practitioners are often unaware of movement in significant cases that are not at trial yet. Mike, a former Tax Court clerk himself, agreed that the lack of transparency around filings is an issue. He suggests adding a centralized briefing search tab so that briefs can be found with keywords and phrases. By being able to search for briefs, both practitioners and pro se taxpayers can review arguments in cases they were unaware of and build more robust defenses for their clients or themselves
You can learn more by reading the complete article at Bloomberg Tax.
About Mike
Mike is an associate with Kostelanetz LLP. He focuses his practice on civil and criminal tax controversy matters, including audits, promoter investigations, voluntary disclosures, U.S. Tax Court litigation, and criminal tax investigations. Prior to joining the firm, Mike served for two years as a judicial law clerk for Judge Joseph W. Nega of the U.S. Tax Court. Mike is an adjunct professor at Villanova University’s Charles Widger School of Law, where he co-teaches a course on federal tax practice and procedure in the school’s graduate tax program.