Janet Spragens, 62; Law Professor Set Up Tax Clinic to Aid Poor

At American University, Janet R. Spragens founded the Federal Tax Clinic. (Family Photo - Family Photo)

Janet R. Spragens, 62, a tax professor at American University's Washington College of Law and the founder of the nation's first tax clinic for low-income taxpayers, died Feb. 19 of cancer at her home in the District.

Ms. Spragens joined the faculty of the Washington College of Law in fall 1973 and founded the Federal Tax Clinic in 1990. Its purpose is to provide third-year law students the opportunity to learn by doing instead of just reading legal theory and to provide assistance to people who frequently are not served well by the legal system.

"Janet came to realize that the tax system is a place where low- and moderate-income taxpayers don't have the resources to protect themselves," said Andy Pike, an associate dean at the law school.

The clinic's clients have included cabdrivers, single working mothers, travel agents, construction workers, retirees, high school teachers, household workers and others who find themselves caught up in the complexity of the nation's administrative and judicial systems. As Ms. Spragens told a House committee in 2001, many are non-English speakers who are frightened and confused. The clinic charges no fees for its services.

Since the clinic was founded, participation in it has been "standing-room only," said its supervising attorney, Nancy Abramowitz, referring both to students and clients. The program's success has spawned others at law schools across the nation.

Born in Washington into a family of lawyers, Ms. Spragens considered becoming a teacher before deciding to pursue a career as a lawyer who taught. She received a bachelor's degree from Wellesley College in 1964 and a master's degree in education from Northwestern University in 1965. She received a law degree from George Washington University Law School in 1968.

As a student teacher during her year at Northwestern, she taught future Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton (D-N.Y.), then a high school senior. In her memoir, "Living History," Clinton credits Ms. Spragens with urging her to broaden her horizons by leaving the Midwest and attending college in the East. Like Ms. Spragens, Clinton chose Wellesley.

During her third year of law school, Ms. Spragens served as a clerk to U.S. District Judge Oliver Gasch. She was an attorney with the appellate section of the Justice Department's tax division before joining the faculty of the Washington College of Law in 1973. At the time, she was the only female member of the full-time faculty.

Federal funding for the tax clinic, thanks to Ms. Spragens' efforts, came about almost accidentally. Testifying in 1997 before the National Commission on Restructuring the Internal Revenue Service, she was asked what could be done to alleviate tax problems confronting the working poor.

"She said, somewhat offhandedly, just provide funds to create more clinics for the provision of services to this needy population across the country," Abramowitz noted. "The rest is history."

Ms. Spragens also was concerned about unethical tax preparers who prey on low-income taxpayers and about the complexities of the earned income tax credit, which is designed to help the working poor. "They are just overwhelmed by the complexity," she told The Washington Post in 2001.

Ms. Spragens served as executive director of the American Tax Policy Institute from 1996 to 2001, was a member of the council for the American Bar Association section on taxation since 1999 and had chaired the section's low-income taxpayer and teaching taxation committees. She was director of the Israel program at the Washington College of Law and was visiting professor of law at the University of Haifa Faculty of Law in 2000.

For her work on behalf of low-income taxpayers, she received the 2006 ABA Section on Taxation Pro Bono Award.

Her marriage to Jeffrey Spragens ended in divorce.

Survivors include two daughters, Robin Spragens Trepanier of Washington and Lee Spragens of Los Angeles; her mother, Sophie B. Altman of Washington; two sisters, Susan Altman of Washington and Nancy Altman of Bethesda; and a brother, Robert Altman of Potomac.