Georgetown Law

Professor Satterthwaite’s research focuses on the law of taxation and examines areas in which taxpayer choices and compliance obligations may have unanticipated equity implications. Among other approaches, she uses experimental, qualitative, and quantitative empirical methods to study how the design of elective provisions in tax statutes and tax agency enforcement policies plays out “on the ground,” with a focus on entry-level entrepreneurs and self-employed individuals. Her recent work has explored the impact of value-added tax registration thresholds on micro-entrepreneurs, the relationship of entrepreneurs’ legal and tax status choices to their firms’ chances for survival, and how audit policies can be presented to taxpayers to support their post-audit compliance choices. Her published and current research has received support from Canada’s federal Social Science and Humanities Research Council, the Foundation for Legal Research, the University of Toronto’s Connaught Fund, and other grantors.

Professor Satterthwaite joined the Law Center from the University of Toronto Faculty of Law, where she was a full-time faculty member for seven years. Before moving to Toronto, she was the Assistant Director of the Institute for Justice Clinic on Entrepreneurship at the University of Chicago Law School, where she supervised second- and third-year law students in their representation of early-stage businesses launched by lower-income entrepreneurs. She practiced for three years as a tax associate at Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom LLP in New York and Chicago and was a Dorot Fellow in Israel.