Levin College of Law
Welcome to UF LAW

Grayson McCouch

Clarence TeSelle Professor
Professor of Law

Expertise

Estates & Trusts  • Taxation of Estates & Trusts  • Wills  • 

About

Professor Grayson M.P. McCouch is the Clarence TeSelle Professor and Professor of Law at the University of Florida. He teaches primarily in the areas of trusts and estates, estate and gift taxation, and estate planning. Before teaching at UF, McCouch clerked for Judge Hugh Bownes on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the First Circuit, practiced law with firms in Boston and Minneapolis, and served as a member of the law faculty at the University of Miami and the University of San Diego. McCouch has published numerous books and articles, reflecting a wide range of scholarly interests including estate and gift taxation, inheritance law, social security, retirement savings policy, and tax shelters. McCouch is a co-author of leading casebooks on gratuitous transfers and federal estate and gift taxation. He is a member of the American Law Institute. He earned his J.D. degree from Stanford University and his LL.M. in Taxation from Boston University.

Education

LL.M. (Taxation), Boston University
J.D., Stanford University
A.B., Harvard University

Teaching and Scholarship

Estates and Trusts; Taxation of Gratuitous Transfers; Estate Planning.

Courses

  • Advanced Trusts and Estates
  • Taxation of Gratuitous Transfers
  • Trusts & Estates

Publications

Books

  • Federal Income Taxation of Estates, Trusts, and Beneficiaries, 2d ed. (West, 2020) [Link]
  • Federal Estate and Gift Taxation, 12th ed. (West, 2020) (with Bittker and Clark) [Link]
  • Federal Estate and Gift Taxation 9th ed. (West, 2020) (with McNulty) [Link]
  •  Introduction to Estate Planning 7th ed. (West, 2019) (with Lynn) [Link]
  • Gratuitous Transfers, 7th ed. (West, 2018) (with Ascher) [Link]

Articles

  • Connelly’s Conundrum: Insurance Proceeds and Stock Redemptions, 182 Tax Notes 2199 (2024).
  • Perpetual Generation-Skipping Trusts, 58 Real Prop., Tr. & Est. L.J. 167 (2023).
  • Custodianships, Trusts, and Guardianships, 40 Va. Tax Rev. 419 475 (2021).
  • “Adversity, Inconsistency, and the Incomplete Nongrantor Trust,” 39 Va. Tax Rev. 419 (2020)
  • “Post-Marital Income Shifting and the End of Alimony Trusts,” 54 Real Prop., Tr. & Est. L.J. 179 (2019)
  • “Revocable Trusts and Fiduciary Accountability,” 26 Elder L.J. 1 (2018)
  • “Another Perspective on Testamentary Arbitration,” 68 Fla. L. Rev. Forum 68 (2016)
  • “Sham Partnerships and Equivocal Transactions” (with Karen Burke), 69 Tax Law. 625 (2016)
  • “Codifying Castle Harbour” (with Karen Burke), 150 Tax Notes 109 (2016) [SSRN]
  • “The Moving Target of Tax Reform” (with Karen Burke), 93 N.C. L. Rev.  649 (2015) [SSRN]
  • “Woods: A Path Through the Penalty Maze,” (with Karen Burke) 142 Tax Notes 829 (2014) [SSRN]
  • “Who Killed the Rule Against Perpetuities?” 40 Pepp. L. Rev. 1291 (2013) [SSRN]
  • “Reflections on Penalty Jurisdiction in Tigers Eye” (with Karen Burke), 136 Tax Notes 1581 (2012)
  • “Illusory Partnership Interests and the Anti-Antiabuse Rule” (with Karen Burke), 132 Tax Notes 813 (2011) [SSRN]
  • The Empty Promise of Estate Tax Repeal, 28 Va. Tax Rev. 369 (2008) [SSRN]
  • COBRA Strikes Back: Anatomy of a Tax Shelter, 62 Tax Law. 59 (2008) (with Burke) [SSRN]

University of Florida Levin College of Law
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PO Box 117620
Gainesville, FL 32611
(352) 273-0804
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The Florida Constitutional Law Endowment in memory of Justice Ben F. Overton was created by Judge Karen Miller in 2013. This fund supports lectures and presentations by Justices of the Florida Supreme Court at the Fredric G. Levin College of Law.

HISTORY

Justice Overton, who earned his B.S. in 1951 and his Juris Doctor in 1952 from the University of Florida, was the first merit appointment to the Florida Supreme Court. Throughout his career he was active in legal education and served as an Adjunct Professor at the Levin College of Law through December 2012, the month of his death. Although he resided at Oak Hammock at the University of Florida, a continuing care retirement community developed in cooperation with UF, he also considered the Florida Supreme Court “home.” Among the high points of his later years was hosting Justices of the Florida Supreme Court in Gainesville and taking his class to Tallahassee to hear oral arguments at the Florida Supreme Court.
Judge Miller, who earned her B.S. cum laude from New York University in 1974 and her Juris Doctor from New York Law School in 1977, served as Chief Administrative Law Judge of the New York City Department of Consumer Affairs, New York City’s business regulatory agency, before she retired to Oak Hammock at the University of Florida. Having accompanied Justice Overton on his excursions to Tallahassee and joined him in welcoming guests to Oak Hammock at the University of Florida, she created the endowment in memory of Justice Overton to ensure that the Levin College of Law continues to have the funding necessary to continue and enhance the interaction between its students and the Florida Supreme Court.

 

Judge Miller remembered the event that motivated the endowment.

 

Prior to a dinner at the home of Dean Robert Jerry and Lisa Jerry shortly after Justice Overton’s death, Justice Barbara Pariente and I were discussing a suitable memorial. Justice Pariente, who had been Justice Overton’s colleague on the Florida Supreme Court and who understood the importance to him of the interaction between his students and the Court, suggested the outline of what has become the Overton lectures. Dean Jerry, who has since retired, as has Dean Emeritus Jon Mills, who assumed responsibility for implementing the Overton lectures, were very supportive from the beginning. Since Dean Mills’ retirement, Professor Timothy McClendon, who assisted both Justice Overton and Dean Mills teaching Florida Constitutional Law and who co-authored the recent Florida Constitutional Law casebook, has continued the Overton lectures with the support of Interim Dean Merritt McAlister and CGR director, Professor Danaya Wright.

Justice Overton was a devoted jurist, educator, and ethical leader of the Florida legal profession. The Overton Lecture Series brings Florida Supreme Court Justices to the University of Florida, Levin College of Law, and serves to introduce students to the inner workings of the Court. CGR and the students of the College of Law extend our deepest gratitude to Judge Karen Miller for making the Overton Lectures possible in perpetuity.

You can watch an interview for the Florida Historical Society by Mary Adkins, professor emeritus of the UF Levin College of Law, with Justice Overton here.

Justice Overton was also interviewed for the Samuel Proctor Oral History Project and a transcript of his interview is available at the Smathers Library, and here.
Justice Overton sat on the Constitution Revision Commission of 1977-78 that proposed a right to privacy in the Florida Constitution. Although it failed as part of the Constitution Revision Commission recommendations, it passed in 1980 when proposed by the legislature. The bill was co-sponsored by our very own Jon Mills. The privacy provision prevailed by greater than 60%. Justice Overton then wrote a concurrence in a critical reproductive rights case in 1989 affirming that the privacy provision of the Florida Constitution included the right to obtain an abortion. That decision was overruled in Planned Parenthood of SW and Central Florida v. Florida. You can read about the role of Justice Overton, Jon Mills – director emeritus of CGR, and the history of the 1989 case here.