David Horton is a Professor of Law at the University of California, Davis, School of Law. He earned his BA cum laude from Carleton College and his J.D. from the University of California, Los Angeles, School of Law, where he was elected to the Order of the Coif and served as Chief Articles Editor of the UCLA Law Review. After graduating, Professor Horton clerked for the Honorable Ronald M. Whyte of the United States District Court for the Northern District of California. 

Professor Horton is the coauthor of three casebooks: Beasties v. Monster: A Primer of Law School and American Legal System; the eighth edition of Cases, Problems, and Materials on Contracts (with Douglas Whaley); and Wills, Trusts, and Estates: The Essentials (with Reid Weisbord and Stephen Urice). He has also published more than 30 law review articles in publications such as The Yale Law Journal, Stanford Law Review, New York University Law Review, University of Pennsylvania Law Review, California Law Review, Duke Law Journal, Northwestern University Law Review, and The Georgetown Law Journal.  

Professor Horton’s academic writing has won The Association of American Law Schools’ Scholarly Papers Competition and the Mangano Dispute Resolution Advancement Award. In 2017, he was selected as a UC Davis Chancellor’s Fellow.  

Professor Horton teaches Contracts; Introduction to Law; and Trusts, Wills, and Estates.  Additionally, he teaches a seminar on the Federal Arbitration Act. In 2015, he won the UC Davis School of Law’s Distinguished Teaching Award.