Stuart Banner

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.

Bibliography

  • Books
    • 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).
    • Anglo-American Securities Regulation: Cultural and Political Roots, 1690-1860. Cambridge University Press (1998).
  • Articles And Chapters
    • Murr and Merger, 7 Brigham-Kanner Property Rights Conference Journal 185 (2018).
    • The Banality of the Commons: Efficiency Arguments against Common Ownership before Hardin, 19 Theoretical Inquiries in Law 395 (2018).
    • American Electric Power Company, Inc. v. State of Connecticut: Brief of Law Professors as Amici Curiae in Support of Respondents (with James R. May), 46 Valparaiso University Law Review 459-500 (2012). Full Text
    • 21st Century Fox: Pierson v. Post, Then and Now, 27 Law and History Review 185-88 (2009).
    • Commodification and the Media, 18 Commodification and the Media 197-201 (2006).
    • Traces of Slavery: Race and the Death Penalty in Historical Perspective, in From Lynch Mobs to the Killing State: Race and the Death Penalty in America, (edited by Austin Sarat and Charles Ogletree, New York University Press, 2006).
    • Speeding up to Smell the Roses, 58 Stanford Law Review 1713-15 (2006).
    • Preparing to be Colonized: Land Tenure and Legal Strategy in Nineteenth-Century Hawaii, 39 Law & Society Review (2005).
    • Why Terra Nullius? Anthropology and Property Law in Early Australia, 23 Law and History Review 95-132 (2005).
    • Granholm v. Heald: A Case of Wine and a Prohibition Hangover, 2004-05 Cato Supreme Court Review 263-86 (2004).
    • The Second Amendment, So Far, 117 Harvard Law Review 898-917 (2004).
    • The Myth of the Neutral Amicus: American Courts and Their Friends, 1790-1890, 20 Constitutional Commentary 111-30 (2003).
    • Transitions Between Property Regimes, 31 Journal of Legal Studies S359-S371 (2002).
    • The Death Penalty's Strange Career, 26 Wilson Quarterly 70-82 (2002).
    • Conquest by Contract: Wealth Transfer and Land Market Structure in Colonial New Zealand, 34 Law & Society Review 47-96 (2000).
    • Two Properties, One Land: Law and Space in 19th Century New Zealand, 24 Law & Social Inquiry 807-52 (1999).
    • The Origin of the New York Stock Exchange, 1791-1860, 27 Journal of Legal Studies 113-40 (1998). Abstract
    • When Christianity Was Part of the Common Law, 16 Law & History Review 27-62 (1998).
    • Legal History and Legal Scholarship, 76 Washington University Law Quarterly 37-44 (1998).
    • The Political Function of the Commons: Changing Conceptions of Property and Sovereignty in Missouri, 1750-1850, 41 American Journal of Legal History 61-93 (1997).
    • What Causes New Securities Regulation? 300 Years of Evidence, 75 Washington University Law Quarterly 849-55 (1997).
    • Written Law and Unwritten Norms in Colonial St. Louis, 14 Law & History Review 33-80 (1996).
    • The Anti-History and Pre-History of Commercial Speech (with Alex Kozinski), 71 Texas Law Review 747-75 (1993).
    • Who's Afraid of Commercial Speech? (with Alex Kozinski), 76 Virginia Law Review 627-53 (1990).
    • Please Don’t Read the Title, 50 Ohio State Law Journal 243-56 (1989).
    • Disqualifying Elected Judges from Cases Involving Campaign Contributors, 40 Stanford Law Review 449-90 (1988).
  • Book Reviews
    • , 65 Journal of Legal Education 428 (2015). Reviewing Natural Law in Court: A History of Legal Theory in Practice, R.H. Helmholz.
    • , 115 American Historical Review 209-10 (2010). Reviewing Possession: Batman’s Treaty and the Matter of History, by Bain Attwood.
    • , 79 Pacific Historical Review 122-23 (2010). Reviewing Hawaiian Blood: Colonialism and the Politics of Sovereignty and Indigeneity, by J. Kēhaulani Kauanui.
    • , 43 Hawaiian Journal of History 211-12 (2009). Reviewing Who Owns the Crown Lands of Hawaiʿi?, by Jon M. Van Dyke.
    • , 4 California Legal History 561-64 (2009). Reviewing The Mining Law of 1872: Past, Politics, and Prospects, by Gordon Morris Bakken.
    • , 27 Law and History Review 684-85 (2009). Reviewing The Cambridge History of Law in America, vol. III, The Twentieth Century and After, edited by Michael Grossberg and Christopher Tomlins.
    • , 19 Law and Politics Book Review 502-04 (2009). Reviewing Transformations in American Legal History: Essays in Honor of Professor Morton J. Horwitz, edited by Daniel W. Hamilton and Alfred L. Brophy.
    • , 25 Law and History Review 649-651 (2007). Reviewing Sovereignty and Possession in the English New World: The Legal Foundations of Empire, 1576-1640, by Ken MacMillan.
    • , 112 American Historical Review 498-99 (2007). Reviewing Constituting Empire: New York and the Transformation of Constitutionalism in the Atlantic World, 1664-1830, by Daniel J. Hulsebosch.
    • , 10 Legal History 259-62 (2006). Reviewing The Invention of Terra Nullius: Historical and Legal Fictions on the Foundation of Australia, by Michael Connor.
    • , 24 Law and History Review 458-59 (2006). Reviewing Aboriginal Societies and the Common Law: A History of Sovereignty, Status, and Self-Determination, by P. G. McHugh.
    • , 47 American Journal of Legal History 456-67 (2005). Reviewing The Body and the State: Habeas Corpus and American Jurisprudence, by Cary Federman.
    • , 6 Punishment & Society 450-52 (2004). Reviewing The Contradictions of American Capital Punishment, by Franklin E. Zimring.
    • , 90 Journal of American History 628-29 (2003). Reviewing Constitutionalism and American Culture: Writing the New Constitutional History, by Sandra F. Van Burkleo, Kermit L. Hall, and Robert J. Kaczorowski, eds.
    • , 22 Journal of the Early Republic 694-96 (2002). Reviewing From Chaos to Continuity: The Evolution of Louisiana's Judicial System, 1712-1862, by Mark F. Fernandez.
    • , 45 American Journal of Legal History 327-28 (2001). Reviewing Rebel and a Cause: Caryl Chessman and the Politics of the Death Penalty in Postwar California, 1948-1974, by Theodore Hamm.
    • Too Close for Insight, 28 Reviews in American History 460-64 (2000). Reviewing Proximity to Death, by William S. McFeely.
    • , 44 American Journal of Legal History 73-74 (2000). Reviewing City of Capital: Politics and Markets in the English Financial Revolution, by Bruce Carruthers.

Courses Available

LAW 571

Legal History Workshop
LAW 311

Property
LAW 725

Supreme Court Clinic
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