Biography

Susan Katcher holds the position of Associate Director of the East Asian Legal Studies Center at the Law School and Senior Lecturer of Law. She teaches courses in the specialized law curriculum for master's students in the Legal Institutions (M.L.I.) program (Legal Sources, Academic Legal Writing, Legal Writing) as well as assisting with on-going course development in the M.L.I. program. She also is a general advisor to students in the Graduate Programs of the Law School. As Associate Director of the Center, Ms. Katcher helps visitors from East and Southeast Asia to the Law School and Law School faculty and staff who participate in teaching, conferences, and Center programs in countries of East and Southeast Asia, in addition to administering the Center's programs for J.D. students. She also is responsible for updating the websites of the Center (www.law.wisc.edu/ealsc) and the Graduate Programs (www.law.wisc.edu/grad) at the Law School. Ms. Katcher started her undergraduate work as a chemistry major but eventually graduated with a degree in fine arts (art history and graphic arts), with a minor in music. She made use of her art background and her new-found interest in, of all things, tax law when she was a student at the UW Law School doing research on IRC 263A, the Uniform Capitalization Rule of the 1986 Tax Code. Ms. Katcher looked into the legislative process that resulted in a tax provision requiring artists to capitalize their equipment as though they were manufacturers of mass-produced goods. (The paper was published as "ARS GRATIA IRS: Artists and the Legislative Process of Tax Law," 13 Col.-VLA J. L. & the Arts 401 (1989), one of the few law review articles that includes a cartoon. Id. at 408.) She has a master's degree in teaching from Oberlin College, and has taught in the public and private sector for more years than she can easily recall. Ms. Katcher graduated from the University of Wisconsin Law School in 1990, the year that the East Asian Legal Studies Center was established, and has worked at the Center since that time.