Marilyn Hajj

Marilyn Hajj is a Forrester Fellow at Tulane University Law School. She received her Bachelor of Laws and Master 1 in Corporate Law from Saint Joseph University in Beirut, and her LL.M. and S.J.D. in Tax Law from the University of Virginia School of Law.

Hajj’s research focuses on taxation and poverty relief, with additional interests in tax administration, social welfare policy, and comparative tax law. Her scholarship draws on interdisciplinary methods, integrating insights from sociology, history, and economics to examine how tax systems shape economic inequality and access to government benefits.

Her work has appeared or is forthcoming in the Columbia Journal of Tax Law, the Georgetown Journal on Poverty Law & Policy, and the Virginia Journal of Social Policy & the Law. Her article Waiter, Extra Tip, No Tax was featured in the Journal of Things We Like (Lots) (Jotwell).

Before joining Tulane, Hajj served as a research assistant to Professors Naomi Cahn, Andrew Hayashi, Cathy Hwang, Ruth Mason, and Mila Versteeg at the University of Virginia School of Law. From 2020 to 2022, she co-taught Contract Law and legal methodology at Saint Joseph University in Beirut alongside Lebanon’s former minister of justice while also providing academic support and career advising to law students.

Hajj is a Fulbright Scholar, an AAUW International Doctoral Fellow, and a P.E.O. International Peace Scholar. In 2024, she was inducted into the University of Virginia’s Raven Society. She is also a founding member of Foodblessed, a Lebanese nonprofit dedicated to combating hunger and food waste, and serves on the board of Friends of Foodblessed, its U.S. charitable partner.