Adding to Expertise
With the online LLM in Taxation program, Lori Bohm is enhancing her career while working full time as international tax counsel for General Electric.
Lori Bohm (LLM in Taxation’20) is not new to the world of tax law. Her professional career as a tax attorney spans more than three decades at multiple companies. However, Bohm always dreamed of returning to school to earn an LLM. After the 2017 tax reform, she felt that there was no better time to continue her legal education.
“I always wanted to do it,” Bohm says. “I thought this would be a good time to learn it and learn it the right way.”
After researching different programs, she felt that BU Law’s online LLM in Taxation was the best fit for her. “There was just something about it,” she says. “Speaking with folks in the office, I felt comfortable and connected.”
Bohm received her JD from Cleveland-Marshall College of Law. She began her career at Ernst & Young in the tax department before moving on to work in corporate and international tax law at American Greetings. Following this, she spent close to 15 years at Austin Powder Company as the tax director.
“Half the time I worked as tax director they didn’t have any systems in place,” she says. “So I went in and implemented a tax department.”
She held positions at Deloitte, Ferro Corporation, and Danaher, helping implement new tax systems for these companies. Bohm now works at General Electric Lighting, primarily in international tax, with additional work in both mergers and acquisitions and cash planning for dividends.
For now, Bohm’s biggest project at GE Lighting is preparing the division to be sold. She has a hand in all the mergers and acquisitions and the additional organizational restructuring steps. While she just began the Graduate Tax Program this summer, she feels that her coursework has already contributed to her career and helped her connect both new information and knowledge she developed from her previous professional experience. .
For example, her Introduction to Corporations class is discussing the formation of companies, a topic directly related to her responsibilities at GE. The class has provided Bohm with more information about the process of establishing companies and has significantly contributed to the knowledge she gained in her professional experiences. “Everything I’m studying today is extremely relevant to the work I’m doing right now in the restructuring,” she says.
Despite working full time, Bohm feels fully engaged in her academic pursuits through the online program while still managing her workload at GE. She enrolled in two classes in her first semester and planned out a schedule that gave her the flexibility to take just one course this semester. Bohm’s planned timetable requires her to take no more than two classes at a time, completing the program in 2020.
Although she is not physically present on campus, Bohm has never felt out of the loop from what is going on at BU Law. In all the classes she has taken so far, her professors have gone out of their way to connect with her and all other online students. In her first class with Christina Rice, director of the Graduate Tax Program, she volunteered to be “on-call” for multiple classes and felt like an active presence in the classroom.
“The best part about it was the ability to participate. I didn’t feel left out being in Cleveland,” she says about the class.
The feeling of being involved was not limited to the classroom. Despite being based in Cleveland she feels connected to Boston. No matter whom she speaks with, whether they are in an administrative office or one of her peers, Bohm gets the sense that people care about her as an individual.
“I think the most important value offered is the connection. I’m really a part of it and not just a number,” says Bohm.
Reported by Yadira Flores (CAS ’19)
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