Ray Madoff is a Professor at Boston College Law School where she teaches trusts and estates, estate and gift, tax, estate planning, and a seminar on immortality and the law. She is the lead author of Practical Guide to Estate Planning (CCH), and has written in a wide variety of areas involving property and death.

Professor Madoff is an experienced mediator and leading authority on the use of mediation to resolve will and trust disputes. Prior to teaching, she was a practicing attorney for 10 years in New York and Boston.

Professor Madoff is a member of the American Law Institute, an Academic Fellow of the American College of Trusts and Estates Counsel and the Chair of the Donative Transfers Section of the American Association of Law Schools. She also serves on the Board of Directors of the ACTEC Foundation.

EDUCATION

A.B., Brown University; J.D., LL.M., New York University.

RECENT ACTIVITIES

Works in Progress:
Immortality and the Law. This book looks at the variety of ways that American law treats interests of the dead and then explains this phenomenon through insights from philosophy, psychology and sociology.

Judicial Discretion and Settlement. An empirical research project (conducted in conjunction with the economist Prof. James Andreoni of the University of Wisconsin) that looks to the role of judicial discretion in determining settlement of disputes.

Presentations: “The Body in American Law: An Historical Perspective” as part of a program at the University of Chicago Law School on Contested Commodities: Reframing the Debate on Financial Incentives in the Supply of Genetic Materials. April 2008

Judicial discretion and settlement of will disputes
Presented at Law and Society (Montreal May 2008) on panel on Creating New Knowledge and Exploring New Approaches in the Law of Donative Transfers

“Overconfidence and Judicial Discretion: Do Winner-Take-All Rules Discourage Pre-Trial Agreement”
(With James Andreoni)
Presented at Harvard Behavioral Economics Roundtable
March 2007 (Cambridge, MA)

“Everything You Always Wanted to Know about Mediation in Will and Trust Disputes* But Were Afraid to Ask”
Massachusetts Bar Association's Probate Litigation Group
March 20, 2007 (Boston, MA)

“Inheritance Law and the Empirical Scholar”
AALS Annual Meeting
Section on Donative Transfers, Fiduciaries and Estate Planning
January 5, 2006 (Washington, D.C.)

“Using Mediation to Resolve Estate and Trust Disputes”
39th Annual Heckerling Institute on Estate Planning at the University of Miami School of Law
January 13, 2005 (Miami, Florida)

"Using Meditation to Resolve Estate and Trust Disputes," at the Thirty-ninth Annual Philip E. Heckerling Institute on Estate Planning at the University of Miami School of Law, Miami, Florida, in January 2005.

Appointments: Chair of the Association of American Law Schools Section on Donative Transfers, Fiduciaries, and Estate Planning. Elected to the Board of the ACTEC Foundation

Teaching Award: Law Student’s Association Teaching Award for “Inspirational dedication to the Boston College Law School Community.” 2000

Other: Op-Ed on the Leona Helmsley Charitable Trust for dogs in New York Times.

July 9, 2008 podcast with New York Times editor David Shipley on the Helmsley Trust. Subscribe/Listen (iTunes)

Recently appeared on KCRW radio discussing the new "super-rich" in America.

Serving on committee to consider whether Massachusetts should adopt the Uniform Trust Code.

Recipient of grant from ACTEC foundation to study the use of mediation in resolving will and trust disputes.

COURSES

Fall '07: No courses taught
Spring '08: Estate Planning; Trusts and Estates
Fall ’09: Trusts and Estates, Estate and Gift Tax

PUBLICATIONS

• With Cornelia R. Tenney and Martin A. Hall. Practical Guide to Estate Planning. 2008 edition. Chicago, CCH, Inc., 2007.
• With Cornelia R. Tenney and Martin A. Hall. Practical Guide to Estate Planning. 2007 edition. Chicago, CCH, Inc., 2006.
• With Cornelia R. Tenney and Martin A. Hall. Practical Guide to Estate Planning. 2006 ed. New York: Aspen Publishers, 2006.
• "End-of-Life Decision Making: Reflections of a Lawyer and a Daughter." Buffalo Law Review 53 (2005): 963-971.
• With Cornelia R. Tenney and Martin A. Hall. Practical Guide to Estate Planning. 2005 Cumulative Supplement. New York: Aspen Publishers, 2005.
• "Mediating Probate Disputes: A Study of Court Sponsored Programs." Real Property, Probate and Trust Journal 38 (Winter 2004): 697-725.
• With Cornelia R. Tenney and Martin A. Hall. Practical Guide to Estate Planning. 2004 Cumulative Supplement. New York: Aspen Publishers, 2004.
• Comment on "Tax Consequences on Wealth Accumulation and Transfers of the Rich," by Wojciech Kopczuk and Joel Slemrod. In Death and Dollars: The Role of Gifts and Bequests in America, Alice H. Munnell and Annika Sundén, editors, 249-257. Washington, D.C.: Brookings Institution Press, 2003.
• "Lurking in the Shadow: The Unseen Hand of Doctrine in Dispute Resolution." Southern California Law Review 76 (November 2002): 161-187.
• With Cornelia R. Tenney and Martin A. Hall. Practical Guide to Estate Planning. New York: Panel Publishers, 2001. (Supplemented by Practical Guide to Estate Planning: 2003 Supplement, by Madoff, Tenney and Hall. New York: Panel Publishers, 2002; Practical Guide to Estate Planning: 2004 Supplement, by Madoff, Tenney and Hall. New York: Aspen Publishers, c2004.)
• "Taxing Personhood: Estate Taxes and the Compelled Commodification of Identity." Virginia Tax Review 17 (Spring 1998): 759-810.
• "Unmasking Undue Influence." Minnesota Law Review 81 (February 1997): 571-629. [An excerpted version appears in Boston College Law School Magazine 5 (Spring 1997): 31-35.]
• "Real Estate Workouts and Bankruptcies." In New York University - Proceedings of the Fifty-Second Institute on Federal Taxation, volume 2, 18-1 -18-42. New York: Matthew Bender and Co., Inc., 1994.
• "Tax Considerations." In Chapter 11 Theory and Practice: A Guide to Reorganization, volume 4, edited by Honorable James F. Queenan, Jr., Philip J. Hendel and Ingrid M. Hillinger, 25:1 - 25:124. Horsham, PA: LRP Publications, 1994.
• "A Reappraisal of the Tax Consequences of Abandonments in Bankruptcy." Tax Notes 50 (February 18, 1991): 785-791.
• "United States Estate and Gift Tax Considerations." In U.S. Portfolio Investment by Foreign Taxpayers, by Leonard Schneidman, 655-666. CCH Tax Transactions Library. Chicago, IL: Commerce Clearing House, Inc., 1989.
• "Back to School After the Tax Reform Act of 1986: The Effect of the New Law on Educational Funding." Taxes 65 (1987): 570-574.
• "Comments on Temporary and Proposed Regulations Defining Ownership Change for Purposes of the New Net Operating Loss Carryforward Limitations." Tax Notes 37 (November 2, 1987): 478. (Full text Daily Tax Highlights and Documents, October 29, 1987.)