Mario L. Barnes is a Chancellor’s Professor of Law and Co-Director of the Center on Law, Equality and Race at the University of California, Irvine school of Law (UCI Law). From July 2018 to December 2021, he was the Dean and Professor of Law at the University of Washington School of Law. From 2009 to 2018, he previously served as a Professor of Law, Senior Associate Dean of Academic Affairs, Dean for Research and Faculty Development and Professor of Criminology, Law and Society (jointly appointed, by courtesy) at UCI. Prior to his arrival at UCI, he was a professor of Law at the University of Miami School of Law and a William H. Hastie Teaching Fellow at the University of Wisconsin. In 2015, he was a visiting scholar at the American Bar Foundation and the University of Melbourne School of Law (Asia Pacific Centre for Military Law).

Professor Barnes received his BA and JD from the University of California, Berkeley and a Master of Laws (LLM) from the University of Wisconsin. His research principally draws on empirical and critical studies of antidiscrimination to examine how law is used to facilitate or disrupt subordination along multiple lines of identity, especially gender and race. His work broadly addresses issues of law and inequality in the areas of constitutional, criminal, education, employment and military/national security law. For over a decade, he has been a leader within the group of scholars who have sought to create deepened relations and more fruitful collaborations between scholars engaged in critical and empirical research. He is currently co-editing an upcoming volume of the Law and Society Review (LSR) dedicated to exploring connections between empirical methods and Critical Race Theory (eCRT) and sociolegal research. His ongoing projects focus on using social science data to deconstruct U.S. Supreme Court diversity discourses and explicate the synergies between narrative methodologies and qualitative research instruments within studies of expanded self-defense (Stand Your Ground) laws. His scholarship has appeared in leading law reviews and LSR. Based, in part, on his research, he has been awarded the Association of American Law School’s – Minority Group Section 2008 Derrick Bell Award (for junior scholars) and the 2015 Clyde Ferguson Award (for senior scholars). In 2023, he was co-recipient (with Kaaryn Gustafson) of the American Bar Foundation Fellows Outstanding Scholar Award (2023).

Professor Barnes has been an LSA member since 2002. He has regularly participated at LSA Annual meetings since 2003 and served the Association in numerous capacities. He served as the elected Treasurer on the Executive board (2013-16) and was twice elected as a Trustee (Class of 2011 and Class of 2021). He has chaired the Diversity Committee (2004-05) and John Hope Franklin Prize committee (2010-11 and 2021-22). He has served on the following committees: Ad Hoc Committee to Award LSA Grants (2022-24); Publications (2017-18); Budget and Finance (2013-16); John Hope Franklin Prize (2011-12), President’s Ad Hoc Committee to Review the Annual Meeting (2009-10); Graduate Student and Early Career Development Workshop (2009); Program Committee (2006), Diversity (2003), and Nominations. He is also an active member of CRN 12 (Critical Research on Race and the Law). He previously served on the editorial board for Law and Social Inquiry (Vol. 37) and currently serves on the editorial advisory boards for the Law and Society Review and the University of California Press Critical Race Theory Book Series.