Benjamin Barton

Helen and Charles Lockett Distinguished Professor of Law
Benjamin Barton
Contact Information
Law 273
Expertise
  • Legal Profession
  • Tort Law

Benjamin Barton

Helen and Charles Lockett Distinguished Professor of Law

Professor Barton is the Helen and Charles Lockett Distinguished Professor of Law and is the author of five books: The Credentialed CourtFixing Law SchoolsRebooting JusticeGlass Half Full: The Decline and Rebirth of the Legal Profession, and The Lawyer-Judge Bias.

Barton is an expert in Supreme Court Justice backgrounds and access to justice issues. He has worked as an associate at a large law firm, clerked for a federal judge, represented the indigent for 12 years as a clinical law professor, and now teaches torts, contracts, evidence, conflict of laws, and the A2J Lab, an innovative law and coding class.

The Credentialed Court was excerpted in The Spectator and reviewed in Law and Liberty and Publisher’s Weekly.

Rebooting Justice was positively reviewed by the Wall Street Journal and the New York Times. Barton’s scholarship has been discussed in USA Today, the ABA Journal, and TIME Magazine. His law review articles have been published in the International Journal of Law and Economics, The Journal of Empirical Legal Studies, and the law reviews of the Universities of Toronto, Pennsylvania, Michigan, and California.

Professor Barton has appeared on local and cable news as an expert on the Supreme Court and has been interviewed by The Break It Down Show, The Hub, The Lawyerist (2x), Lawsome, The EdUp Legal Podcast, The Thinking LSAT Podcast, The LSAT Unplugged, and The Geek in Review.

Professor Barton has won the student selected Harold C. Warner Outstanding Teacher Award and has been named the outstanding faculty advisor for UT Pro Bono three times. He also won the 2010 LSAC Philip D. Shelton Award for outstanding research in legal education. In 2014-15 he received a Fulbright Award to teach Comparative Law at the University of Ljubljana in Slovenia.

  • Education & Experience
  • Publications

J.D., magna cum laude, 1996, University of Michigan Law School

B.A. with honors, 1991, Haverford College

Social Science Research Network (SSRN)

Full list of SSRN scholarly papers