Natalie Banta Lynner

Biography

Natalie Lynner is the Dwight D. Opperman Distinguished Professor of Law at Drake University Law School. She teaches in the areas of wills and trusts, property, and tax law. Her primary research interests include digital asset succession, property rights, and state intestacy laws. Her scholarship focuses on how American succession law should adapt to the changing nature of property in the digital age.

Professor Lynner has given speeches on digital asset planning at law schools across the world. She has published articles in UCLA Law Review, Iowa Law Review, North Carolina Law Review, and Fordham Law Review. Professor Lynner has served as the chair of the American Association of Law Schools (AALS) Trusts and Estates Section as well as an executive member of the AALS Real Property Section. She is admitted to the bars of the District of Columbia and California and is an honorary member of the Iowa State Bar.

Prior to joining Drake Law, Professor Lynner was an Assistant Professor at Valparaiso University Law School and a Visiting Assistant Professor at Stetson University College of Law, teaching Trusts and Estates, Property, and Family Law. She practiced for three years at Covington & Burling LLP in Washington, D.C., where she litigated under the Alien Tort Statute, defended a national bank in a multi-district consumer class action, and was a member of the trial team representing BP in civil litigation arising from the Deepwater Horizon incident in the Gulf of Mexico. Professor Lynner clerked for Judge Jay S. Bybee of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit.

Professor Lynner graduated first in her class at Brigham Young University Law School and served as the editor-in-chief of the BYU Law Review. She holds a bachelor’s degree from Brigham Young University, where she graduated magna cum laude and with University Honors.

Areas of Expertise

Wills & Trusts, Property, Federal Income Tax

Education

• JD, Brigham Young University, J. Reuben Clark Law School, summa cum laude, Brigham Young University Law Review
• BS, Brigham Young University, magna cum laude, University Honors

Selected Publications

• The Price of Privacy at Death, 67 Boston College Law Review 4 (2026) (forthcoming).
• Death in a Pandemic: Funeral Practices and Industry Disruption, 70 UCLA Law Review (2023).
• Electronic Wills and Digital Assets: Reassessing Formality in the Digital Age, 71 Baylor Law Review 547 (2019).
• Minors and Digital Asset Succession, 104 Iowa Law Review 1699 (2019).
• Property Interests in Digital Assets: The Rise of Digital Feudalism, 38 Cardozo Law Review 1099 (2017).
• Death and Privacy in the Digital Age, 94 North Carolina Law Review 927 (2016).
• Inherit the Cloud: The Role of Private Contracts in Distributing or Deleting Digital Assets at Death, 83 Fordham Law Review 799 (2014). 

Significant Accomplishments

• Estate Privacy, Hon. Edward D. Re Faculty Workshop Series, St. John's University School of Law, Queens, NY (Sept. 2024).
• Reexamining Trust Privacy, AALS Trusts and Estates Section, Washington, D.C. (Jan. 2024).
• AI in Law Congress, Artificial Intelligence and New Technologies in Legal Practice, The Legal Implications of Artificial Intelligence, Faculty of Law and Administration at the University of Szczecin, Szczecin, Poland (virtual) (Dec. 2023).
• International Conference Regarding the Digital Asset Revolution: Opportunities and Challenges, Keynote address, Vilnius University Law School, Vilnius, Lithuania (Oct. 2023).
• Teaching Tools and Questions of Inequality in the Wills and Trusts Classroom, moderator, AALS Trusts and Estates Section, San Diego, CA (Jan. 2023).
• Trusts and Estates in Society, AALS Trusts and Estates Section, virtual panel (Jan. 2022).
• Death and Privacy in the Digital Age, Thompson Center on Public Leadership by the University of Wisconsin, Data Deluge: Privacy in a Connected World, Superior, WI (March 2022).
• Elected an Academic Fellow for the American College of Trust and Estate Counsel (2024)
• Presenter at numerous conferences concerning digital asset inheritance: Minors and Digital Asset Succession, AALS Trusts and Estates Section, Washington, D.C. (2020); Estate Planning to Protect Your Online Life After Death, Financial Planning Association of Minnesota, MN (July 2019); Digital Assets and Digital Wills, Faculty Exchange, University of Kansas Law School, KS (April 2019); Reassessing What Will Formality Means in the Digital Age, Chicagoland Junior Scholars Works in Progress Conference, Il (October 2018); Property Interests in Digital Assets, AALS Property Section Junior Scholars Session, NY (January 2016)
• Member of Iowa Probate, Trust and Estate Planning Section Council and Iowa Title Standards Committee of Iowa State Bar (2019-Present)
• Executive Member of the Association of American Law Schools Real Property and Trusts and Estates Sections (2015-2023)
• Bar Admissions: District of Columbia (2010); U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit (2010); California (2009)