Norman Abrams Distinguished Professor of Law
- B.A. Yale, 1985
- J.D. Stanford, 1988
- UCLA Faculty Since 2001
Stuart Banner teaches Property, the Supreme Court Clinic, and a variety of other courses.
Professor Banner is a legal historian who has written about a wide range of topics in American and British legal history. His books include The Most Powerful Court in the World: A History of the Supreme Court of the United States (Oxford University Press, 2024); The Decline of Natural Law: How American Lawyers Once Used Natural Law and Why They Stopped (Oxford University Press, 2021), Speculation: A History of the Fine Line Between Gambling and Investing (Oxford University Press, 2017); The Baseball Trust: A History of Baseball's Antitrust Exemption (Oxford University Press, 2013); American Property: A History of How, Why, and What We Own (Harvard University Press, 2011); Who Owns the Sky? The Struggle to Control Airspace from the Wright Brothers On (Harvard University Press, 2008); Possessing the Pacific: Land, Settlers, and Indigenous People from Australia to Alaska (Harvard University Press, 2007); How the Indians Lost Their Land: Law and Power on the Frontier (Harvard University Press, 2005); The Death Penalty: An American History (Harvard University Press, 2002); Legal Systems in Conflict: Property and Sovereignty in Missouri, 1750-1860 (University of Oklahoma Press, 2000); and Anglo-American Securities Regulation: Cultural and Political Roots, 1690-1860 (Cambridge University Press, 1998). He has received fellowships from the National Endowment for the Humanities, the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation, the Fulbright Scholar Program, and the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars.
Professor Banner, as the director of UCLA’s Supreme Court Clinic, has represented parties in several recent U.S. Supreme Court cases, including Murphy v. Smith, 138 S. Ct. 784 (2018); Matal v. Tam, 137 S. Ct. 1744 (2017); Nelson v. Colorado, 137 S. Ct. 1249 (2017); Utah v. Strieff, 136 S. Ct. 2056 (2016); Torres v. Lynch, 136 S. Ct. 1619 (2016); Betterman v. Montana, 136 S. Ct. 1609 (2016); and Heffernan v. City of Paterson, 136 S. Ct. 1412 (2016).
Professor Banner graduated from Stanford Law School, where he was articles editor of the Stanford Law Review. He clerked for Judge Alex Kozinski of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit and Justice Sandra Day O’Connor of the U.S. Supreme Court. He practiced law at Davis Polk & Wardwell and at the Office of the Appellate Defender, both in New York. Before coming to UCLA, he taught at Washington University in St. Louis.