Allison Anna Tait
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Profile
Allison Tait is professor of law at the University of Richmond where she teaches trusts and estates, family law, critical theory, feminist legal theory, and seminars about the "meaning of money" and family abolition. Professor Tait joined the University of Richmond Law faculty in 2015. Before coming to Richmond, she was an Associate-in-Law at Columbia Law School. She also clerked for the Hon. Richard Palmer of the Connecticut Supreme Court and spent a year as the Gender Equity Postdoctoral Fellow for the Yale Women Faculty Forum.
Professor Tait's research addresses the regulation of family and household economies and the ways in which the regulation of "family money" produces complex forms of inequality. Her research takes up questions of entitlement, privilege, and dispossession, and she writes about the ways that family wealth rules help to embed difference along the various axes of identity. She has written articles about the legal framework of high-wealth exceptionalism; the use of family trusts to safeguard social and cultural capital; and role of marriage in the creation of economic privilege.
She is currently working on a book, The House that Family Money Built (UC Press, 2026), that pairs analysis of poverty governance with wealth management. The book centers on the disparate ways in which the populations on the two ends of the wealth spectrum are treated, the ways in which they strangely resemble and reflect one another, and the ways in which they are connected through patterns of wealth extraction.Expand All-
Grants and Fellowships
Plumer Visiting Fellow, St. Anne's College, Oxford University, (2018 - 2018)
Lillian Goldman Perpetual Scholarship Recipient, Yale Law School, (2009 - 2011)
Presidential Public Service Fellow, Yale Law School, (2009 - 2009)
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Presentations
"Extra: How Law Genders Surplus," Family Law Scholars and Teachers, (June 2026)
"Operationalizing the Right to Stay," Law & Society Annual Meeting, Law & Society (May 2026)
"What We Inherit: Property and Asset Fetishization," Law & Society Annual Meeting, Law & Society (May 2026)
"The Offshore Template," ALPE (Association for Law & Political Economy) Conference, (February 2026)
"The Political Economy of Elite Endowments," The University and Democracy, Boston University School of Law (November 2025)
"From New Women to Single Women: A Typology of Nonmarriage," Nonmarriage Roundtable, Cardozo Law School (September 2025)
"Family Money: Economies of Extraction," Private Law and Multicultural Identities, University of Milan (July 2025)
"The Miseducation of Women: A Literary Genealogy of Sexual Health and Marital Happiness," Family Law Scholars and Teachers Conference, Drexel Law School (June 2025)
"Geographies of Debt," International Society for Family Law, Temple Law School (June 2025)
"Mapping Geographies of Debt," Law & Society Annual Conference, (May 2025)
"Archipelagoes of Privilege and Poverty," Seminar in Private Law, Yale Law School, Center for Private Law (February 2025)
"Family Money: Repair and Reimagining Wealth Management," Inheriting Inequality: Critical Trusts and Estates, Drexel University School of Law (September 2024)
"Singlehood and the New Woman in Henry James and William Dean Howells," Nonmarriage Roundtable, University of Virginia Law School (September 2024)
"Family Money: Connecting Poverty Law and Wealth Management," Poverty Law Workshop, University of Indiana, Bloomington (September 2024)
"Debt Governance and Wealth Management," Faculty Workshop, Albany Law School (April 2024)
"Trusts and Inequality," Oxford Handbook of Trusts Conference, UBC Allard Law School (April 2024)
"Trusts, Family Law, and Wealth Preservation," AALS Annual Meeting, AALS (January 2024)
"Welfare Queens and Davos Kings," Regional Family Law Workshop, Duke Law School (December 2023)
"Family Money:Economies of Excess and Extraction," Equality Law Scholars, Boston University School of Law (November 2023)
"A Row of Bleak Houses: Charles Dickens and the Failure of English Households," Nonmarriage Roundtable, Rutgers Law School (September 2023)
"Family Trees and Family Fortunes," 18th (Golden Jubilee) World Conference of the International Society of Family Law , International Society of Family Law (July 2023)
"Archipelagos of Poverty and Privilege," Birkbeck Law Seminar, Birkbeck Law, University of London (May 2023)
"The Hidden Beneficiaries of Responsibilization," ALPS Annual Meeting, Association for Law, Property, & Society (May 2023)
"The Masterplot of the Market," Legal Masterplots Workshop, Southampton Law School (May 2023)
"The Onshore/ Offshore Imaginary," Kent Faculty Seminar, University of Kent School of Law (March 2023)
"The Time of Dynastic Trusts," Death and Taxes: Dynasty Trusts and Wealth in America, ABA Section of Real Property, Trust and Estate Law (March 2023)
"Paraphernalia or "Ornaments of Her Body": Creating Legal Bodies through Chancery Jurisprudence," Renaissance Society of America, 2023 Annual Meeting, Renaissance Society of America (March 2023)
"Teaching Tools and Questions of Inequality in the Wills and Trusts Classroom," AALS Annual Conference 2023, AALS (January 2023)
"Tax-Free and the Offshore Imaginary," Protecting Dynastic Wealth, University of Pittsburgh School of Law (October 2022)
"Household Intimacy Outside of Marriage: Family Pluralism in the Novels of Anthony Trollope," Nonmarriage Roundtable, Washington University School of Law (September 2022)
"Family Trees and Family Fortunes," LSA Annual Meeting 2022, Law & Society Association (July 2022)
"Breaking Down Symbolic Fathers and Families," IALMH Annual Meeting 2022, International Academy of Law and Mental Health (July 2022)
"“Trollope’s Curiously Female Household: Ancillary Markets and Alternative Families," Association of the Study of Law, Culture and the Humanities Annual Conference, Association of the Study of Law, Culture and the Humanities (June 2022)
"Inheriting Privilege," Wealth and the Family, Max Plank Institute for the Study of Societies (June 2022)
"Trollope's Curiously Female Household: Forming Families in the Shadow of Coverture," Married Women and the Law in Britain, North America, and the Common Law World, University of Florida Levin School of Law (May 2022)
"The Restatement of Trusts: Looking Forward and Public Policy ," Critical Trusts & Estates, Oklahoma City University School of Law (April 2022)
"Teaching about Wealth Gaps and Succession Law," Critical Trusts & Estates, Oklahoma City University School of Law (April 2022)
"The Colonial Landscape of Debt," Intersectional Speaker Series on Gender and Racial Equity , Penn State Dickinson Law (March 2022)
"Inheriting Privilege," AALS Annual Meeting, AALS (January 2022)
"Legal Scholarship, Humanities Methodologies," AALS Annual Conference, AALS (January 2022)
"Family Trees and Family Fortunes," Financial Inequalities in an Unequal World, ACS Washington DC Lawyer's Chapter (December 2021)
"Debt Collection, Sites of Extraction, and Colonies of Wealth," Northwestern University Law Review Annual Symposium, Northwestern University Law School (November 2021)
"Family Trees and Family Fortunes," Nonmarriage Roundtable, Washington University School of Law (October 2021)
Presenter, "Queer Theory, Feminist Theory, and Technology," Law & Society Annual Meeting, (May 2021)
Presenter, "The Curiously Female Household: Re-imagining Domestic Power in Trollope's Novels," Law & Society Annual Meeting 2021, Law & Society (May 2021)
Presenter, "Inheriting Privilege," DC Area Family Law Workshop, Howard Law School (November 2020)
Moderator, "Wealth and Taxes: Will the ERA help?," Two Centuries of the Equal Rights Amendment, University of Florida, Levin College of Law (September 2020)
Presenter, "The Wealth of Families," Family Law Scholars and Teachers Annual Meeting, Family Law Scholars and Teachers Conference (June 2020)
Commentator, "Empirical Injustice," Law and Society Association Annual Meeting, Law and Society Association (May 2020)
Commentator, "Perspectives on Sex, Work and New Legal Orders," Law and Society Association Annual Meeting, Law and Society Association (May 2020)
Commentator, "Remarks on the new Oxford Handbook on Law and Humanities," Association of Law, Culture, & Humanities Annual Meeting, Association of Law, Culture, & Humanities (March 2020)
Presenter, "Trust as Patrimony," Law Faculty Colloquy, Boston College Law (September 2019)
Presenter, "Trust as Patrimony," Law Faculty Colloquy, Wake Forest School of Law (September 2019)
Commentator, "Emerging Interdisciplinary Scholarship in Trusts & Estates," SEALS Annual Conference, SEALS (August 2019)
Commentator, "Discussion Group: Topic Coverage of a Modern Trusts & Estates Course," SEALS Annual Conference, SEALS (July 2019)
Panelist, "Comments on panel entitled Finding Aesthetics in Unexpected Places," Law & Society Association Annual Conference, (June 2019)
Panelist, "Comments on panel entitled Planning for an Unstable Future," Law & Society Association Annual Conference, (June 2019)
Presenter, "Divorce Lending," Law & Society Association Annual Conference, (May 2019)
Presenter, "Inheriting the Family," Family Law Scholars and Teachers Conference 2019, Howard University School of Law (May 2019)
Presenter, "The Private Lives of High-Wealth Families," Shifting Normativities, UBC Allard School of Law (May 2019)
Presenter, "Divorce Lending," Law, Culture, and Humanities 2019, ASLCH (March 2019)
Presenter, "Confronting Injustice and Memory in the Public Square," AALS 2019 Annual Conference, Association of American Law Schools (January 2019)
Presentations Prior to 2019
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Professional Experience
Professor (2020 - present)
University of Richmond School of Law, Richmond, VAAssociate Dean for Faculty Development (2021 - 2025)
University of Richmond School of LawVisiting Professor (2023 - 2023)
Birkbeck, University of London , London,Associate Professor (2018 - 2020)
University of Richmond School of Law, Richmond, VAAssistant Professor (2015 - 2020)
University of Richmond School of Law, Richmond, VAAssociate-in-Law (2013 - 2015)
Columbia Law School, New York, NYGender Equity Postdoctoral Associate (2011 - 2012)
Yale University, New Haven, CT
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Grants and Fellowships
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Publications
Books
The House that Family Money Built (University of California Press ) (September 2026).
Journal ArticlesThe Political Economy of Elite Endowments, 106 Boston University Law Review 1053 (2026).
The Haunting of Wealth Law, 29 ACTEC Law Journal (2023).
Debt Governance, Wealth Management, and the Uneven Burdens of Child Support, 117 Northwestern University Law Review 305 (2022).
Inheritance in the Fringe: Managing Family Money at the Ends of the Wealth Spectrum, 48 ACTEC Law Journal
Home of the Dispossessed, 28 Michigan Journal of Gender & Law 195 (2022).
Inheriting Privilege, 116 Minnesota Law Review 1949 (2022).
Custom of The Country: Trusts and Marriage Planning in High-Wealth Families, 34 American Academy of Matrimonial Lawyers Journal 219 (2021).
The Law of High-Wealth Exceptionalism, 71 Alabama Law Review 981 (2020).
Trusting Marriage, 10 U.C. Irvine Law Review 199 (2019).
Keeping Promises and Meeting Needs: Public Charities at a Crossroads, 102 Minnesota Law Review 1789 (2018).
Corporate Family Law, 112 Northwestern University Law Review 1 (2017).
Divorce Equality, 90 Washington Law Review 1245 (2015).
Publicity Rules for Public Trusts, 33 Cardozo Arts & Entertainment Law Journal 421 (2015).
The Secret Economy of Charitable Giving, 95 Boston University Law Review 1663 (2015).
The Beginning of the End of Coverture: A Reappraisal of the Married Woman's Separate Estate, 26 Yale Journal of Law and Feminism 165 (2014).
A Tale of Three Families: Historical Households, Earned Belonging, and Natural Connections, 63 Hastings Law Journal 1345 (2012).
Mancession or Momcession: Good Providers, a Bad Economy, and Gender Discrimination, 86 Chicago-Kent Law Review 857 (2011).
Family Model and Mystical Body: Witnessing Gender through Political Metaphor in the Early Modern Nation State, 36 Women's Studies Quarterly 76 (2008).
Book ChaptersLaw and Inequality: Seeing Trust-Based Inequalities, in Oxford Handbook of Comparative Trusts Law (April 2026).
Trusts and Inequality: the Paradox and the Fold, in A Research Agenda for Critical Trusts Law (Elgar Publishing) (Winter 2026).
The Masterplot of the Market, in Law, Narrative and Masterplot: New Research Perspectives (Routledge) (with Luke Norris) (June 2025).
Family Property over Time, in Family Property and the Law (Elgar Research Handbook) (September 2024).
Family Trees, Family Ties, and Family Fortunes, in Inheritance Matters: Interdisciplinary Perspectives on Law (Hart Bloomsbury Press) (September 2023).
The Restatements of Trust – Revisited, in The ALI at 100: Essays on Its Centennial (Oxford University Press) (April 2023).
The Private Lives of High-Wealth Families, in House Rules: Changing Families, Evolving Norms, and the Role of Law (University of British Columbia Press) (2021).
Rewritten opinion on Karsenty v. Schoukroun, in Feminist Judgments: Rewritten Trusts & Estates Opinions (Deborah S. Gordon et al., eds.) (September 2020).
Commentary on United States v. Windsor, in Feminist Judgments: Rewritten Tax Opinions (Anthony C. Infanti et al., eds.) (2017).
Constructing Courts: Architecture, the Ideology of Judging, and the Public Sphere, in Treatise on Legal Visual Semiotics (with Judith Resnik et al.) (2012).
TextbooksExperiencing Trusts and Estates (2021).
Conference ProceedingsHousehold Intimacy and Being Unmarried: Family Pluralism in the Novels of Anthony Trollope , Washington University Journal of Law and Policy (June 2023) (with Linda C. McClain).
Tax-Free and the Offshore Imaginary , Pittsburgh Tax Review (September 2023).
What We Didn't See Before, 24 Yale Journal of Law & the Humanities 3 (2012).
Polygamy, Publicity, and Locality: The Place of the Public in Marriage Practice, 2011 Michigan State Law Review 173 (2011) (symposium piece).
Blog PostsLess Freedom, More Equality, JOTWELL: The Journal of Things We Like (Lots) (April 2026).
Trust Law and the Tides of Colonialism, JOTWELL: The Journal of Things We Like (Lots) (June 2025).
Revisiting Henry Hansmann: Higher Ed Endowments, Financial Buffers, and Three Threats to Institutional Autonomy, (HistPhil) (May 2025).
How to Use Endowments to Protect University Missions, LPE Blog (March 2025).
The Not-So-Secret Lives of Trusts, LPE Blog (February 2025).
Making Families Great Again, (LPE Blog) (September 2024).
The Wealth Planning Climate, JOTWELL: The Journal of Things We Like (Lots) (August 2024).
Economies of Death, Jotwell: The Journal of Things We Like (Lots) (June 2023).
Unearthing Posthumous Subordination , Jotwell: The Journal of Things We Like (Lots) (March 2022).
The Queen's Period, Volume 41 Symposium, Are You There Law? It's Me, Menstruation Columbia Journal of Gender & Law (2021).
Trust Secrets, Revealed, Jotwell: The Journal of Things We Like (Lots) (April 2021).
Review of Bernard Allorent's La Fortune de la Grande Mademoiselle: Anne Marie Louise d'Orléans, duchesse de Montpensier (1627-1693); Un enjeu politique au XVIIieme siècle, 20 H-France Review (May 2020).
Of Trusts, Gender, and Grammar, Jotwell (January 2020) (review of Deborah Gordon's Engendering Trust).
Teaching Trusts & Estate as Critical Wealth Genealogy, Law and Political Economy Blog (October 2019).
The New Trust Code, Law and Political Economy Blog (July 2019).
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In the News
How Two Sigma Founder's Divorce Fight Hangs Over Hedge Fund's Future (Bloomberg )
Thu., Feb. 5, 2026Diane Keaton’s $5M pet trust would be over the top if reports prove true – here’s how to ensure your beloved pet is safe after you are gone (The Conversation)
Tue., Nov. 4, 2025"Oligarchs are oligarching": Inside Rupert Murdoch’s family trust battle (Salon.com)
Fri., Dec. 13, 2024Beyoncé has a prenup − but do you need one if you’re not a millionaire? (The Conversation)
Thu., Aug. 10, 2023Online tools put will-writing in reach for most people – but they’re not the end of the line for producing a legally binding document (The Conversation)
Mon., Jan. 10, 2022Wealth, Privilege, Power, and Opportunity (JOTWELL)
Wed., Dec. 22, 2021How Wyoming Became a Top Tax Haven With Its 'Cowboy Cocktail' (Cheddar)
Tue., Dec. 21, 2021The "Cowboy Cocktail": How Wyoming became one of the world's top tax havens (Washington Post)
Mon., Dec. 20, 2021Republican Glenn Youngkin Taps His Personal Fortune In Tightening Virginia Governor Race (Forbes)
Fri., Sep. 17, 2021Upper-class traitor Chuck Collins on how "wealth hoarding" will create more Trumps (Salon)
Tue., Apr. 13, 2021What Leon Black Got for Paying Jeffrey Epstein $158 Million (Bloomberg)
Mon., Jan. 25, 2021The Rich (Families) Are Different (JOTWELL)
Tue., Jun. 23, 2020Dead white men get their say in court as Virginia tries to remove Robert E. Lee statues (The Conversation)
Fri., Jun. 19, 2020Latest legal hurdle to removing Confederate statues in Virginia: The wishes of their long-dead white donors (The Conversation)
Fri., Jun. 19, 2020It's Time to Do the Things You Keep Putting Off. Here's How (Wired)
Wed., Mar. 25, 2020Families, Inc. (JOTWELL)
Fri., May. 17, 2019Tait on the secret economy of charitable giving (PrawfsBlawg)
Wed., Nov. 25, 2015 - Links