TheBrigham–Kanner Property Rights Prize is awarded each Fall by theWilliam & Mary Law School, at theBrigham–Kanner Property Rights Conference. The Conference and Prize were proposed in 2003 byJoseph T. Waldo, a graduate of the Marshall–Wythe School of Law with the support of the then Dean of the Law School,W. Taylor Reveley III, who would later become president of the college. The Conference and Prize were inaugurated in 2004.[1] The Conference and Prize are named afterToby Prince Brigham andGideon Kanner for "their contributions to private property rights, their efforts to advance the constitutional protection of property, and their accomplishments in preserving the important role that private property plays in protecting individual and civil rights."[2] Toby Prince Brigham is a founding partner of Brigham Moore in Florida. Gideon Kanner is professor of law emeritus at theLoyola Law School in Los Angeles. The Brigham–Kanner Prize is awarded annually during the Brigham–Kanner Property Rights Conference.
Since 2004, the Brigham–Kanner Property Rights Prize has been awarded to a scholar, practitioner or jurist whose work affirms the fundamental importance of property rights and contributes to the overall awareness of the role property rights occupy in the broader scheme of individual liberty.[3]
Frank Michelman (2004), Robert Walmsley University Professor Emeritus at Harvard University, for his articleProperty, Utility, and Fairness: Comments on the Ethical Foundations of 'Just Compensation' Law.[4]
Richard Epstein (2005), James Parker Hall Distinguished Service Professor of Law at the University of Chicago, for his bookTakings: Private Property and the Power of Eminent Domain.[5]
James W. Ely Jr. (2006), Milton R. Underwood Professor of Law, emeritus at Vanderbilt University, for his bookThe Guardian of Every Other Right: A Constitutional History of Property Rights.[6]
Margaret Radin (2007), Henry King Ranson Professor of Law at the University of Michigan and Faculty of Law Distinguished Research Scholar at the University of Toronto, for her booksContested Commodities andReinterpreting Property.[7]
Robert Ellickson (2008), Walter E. Meyer Professor of Property and Urban Law at Yale University, for his body of work on property.[8]
Richard Pipes (2009), Frank B. Baird, Jr., Professor of History, emeritus, at Harvard University.
Carol M. Rose (2010), Lohse Chair in Water and Natural Resources professor at the University of Arizona Jame E. Rogers College of Law, for her involvement in property rights at Yale Law School and her booksPerspectives on Property Law and Property andPersuasion: Essays on the History, Theory, and Rhetoric of Ownership.
Sandra Day O'Connor (2011) for her lifetime of contributions to property rights law, particularly her dissent inKelo v. City of New London.
James E. Krier (2012), Earl Warren DeLano Professor of Law at the University of Michigan Law School, for his lifetime of scholarship, including his casebook on Property.[9]
Thomas W. Merrill (2013), Charles Evans Hughes Professor of Law at Columbia Law School, for his body of scholarship on property, including the booksProperty: Takings andProperty: Principles and Policies.
Michael M. Berger (2014), appellate attorney at Manatt, Phelps & Phillips, for his years of property rights advocacy in the courts.[10]
Joseph W. Singer (2015), Bussey Professor of Law at Harvard Law School, for his body of scholarship on property rights.[11]
Hernando de Soto Polar (2016), author ofThe Mystery of Capital: Why Capitalism Triumphs in the West and Fails Elsewhere, andThe Other Path: The Economic Answer to Terrorism, for his writing and his efforts at designing and implementing property-rights reforms in developing nations around the world.[12]
Stewart E. Sterk (2018), H. Bert and Ruth Mack Professor of Real Estate Law and Director of the Center for Real Estate Law at theBenjamin N. Cardozo School of Law for his years of teaching property law and his body of scholarship on property rights.[13]
Henry E. Smith (2020), Fessenden Professor of Law atHarvard Law School for his body of scholarship on Property Law, including several casebooks, years of teaching property law, and position as a Reporter on theRestatement (Fourth) of Property.[16]
Gregory S. Alexander (2023), A. Robert Noll Professor of Law, emeritus, atCornell Law School, for his career of teaching and scholarship on property law, including his booksCommodity and Propriety, winner of theAmerican Publishers Association 1997 Book of the Year in Law award,Property and Human Flourishing, andThe Global Debate Over Constitutional Property: Lessons for American Takings Jurisprudence.
Lee Anne Fennel (2024), Max Pam Professor of Law, atUniversity of Chicago Law School, for her booksThe Unbounded Home: Property Values Beyond Property Lines andSlices and Lumps: Division and Aggregation in Law and Life and her scholarship advancing practical conceptions of property rights and property's social boundaries.
William A. Fischel (2025), Professor of Economics and Hardy Professor of Legal Studies, Emeritus, atDartmouth College, for his bookThe Homevoter Hypothesis: How Home Values Influence Local Government Taxation, School Finance, and Land-Use Policies scholarship on the relationship between private property ownership and local government.[19]
