Barton “Buzz” Thompson is the Robert E. Paradise Professor of Natural Resources Law at Stanford Law School. He is the founding director of Stanford University’s Woods Institute for the Environment and helped launch its program on Water in the West. He also serves of counsel to the law firm of O’Melveny & Myers.

Thompson is a leading expert on water law and policy, and the author of both Legal Control of Water Resources, fourth edition, and Managing California's Water. A former clerk to the late Chief Justice William H. Rehnquist, he currently serves as special master for the United States Supreme Court in Montana v. Wyoming, an interstate dispute involving the Yellowstone River system. He is counsel for the Coachella Valley Water District in Agua Caliente Band of Cahuilla Indians v. Coachella Valley Water District. Thompson is also is a former member of the Science Advisory Board for the federal Environmental Protection Agency.