Chicago-Kent mourns the death of lawyer and friend George B. Javaras

The Chicago-Kent community was saddened by the recent death of George B. Javaras, one of our nation's premiere tax lawyers and a driving force behind Chicago-Kent's Graduate Program in Taxation and annual Federal Tax Institute.

A senior partner at the law firm of Kirkland & Ellis, Mr. Javaras was a graduate of Northwestern University and the University of Chicago Law School. As a young attorney, he worked in the U.S. Treasury Department's Office of the Tax Legislative Counsel before joining Kirkland & Ellis in 1967 and helping establish that firm's tax department.

For many years Mr. Javaras was an adjunct professor at Chicago-Kent and chaired the advisory committee for the law school's Graduate Program in Taxation. For 14 years he also chaired Chicago-Kent's annual Federal Tax Institute, at which hundreds of tax professionals from throughout the country gather to review newsworthy tax developments and their impact on tax planning, compliance and controversy techniques.

It was Mr. Javaras's stellar reputation in the tax law community that made the Tax Institute what it is today. Through his efforts, the institute each year welcomed an extraordinary array of speakers, from IRS commissioners to distinguished federal judges to some of the nation's finest tax litigators.

Mr. Javaras's influence will remain at our law school for years to come, as successive generations of tax professionals attend the programs he so skillfully built. We extend our sympathy to his wife, Barbara, and to his daughter, Kristin.