Jeff Baker is the Law School’s first Associate Dean of Experiential Learning and a professor of Clinical Legal Instruction. He directs the Law School’s seven clinics and helps lead other programs of experiential education across the curriculum. His scholarship focuses on issues of human rights and dignity, social justice, legal education, and ethics, at the intersections of law, theology, jurisprudence, and public policy.
From 2013 to 2025, Dean Baker served as the Associate Dean of Clinical Education and Global Programs at Pepperdine University Caruso School of Law in Los Angeles. There, he founded and directed the Community Justice Clinic and the Disaster Relief Clinic. He led the school’s programs in London, Washington, D.C., Germany, and Switzerland, and he taught, trained, and consulted with partners in India, Brazil, the Philippines, and the United Kingdom. While at Pepperdine, he received the 2025 Stephen J. Ellmann Memorial Clinical Scholarship Award from the Association of American Law Schools (AALS), the 2024 Belonging Award for Faculty, and the 2019 Citizen of the Year Dolphin Award from The Malibu Times, among other honors.
From 2006 to 2013, Dean Baker served as an Associate Professor of Law and the Director of Clinical Programs at Faulkner University Jones School of Law in Montgomery. There, he directed the Family Violence Clinic and founded the Elder Law Clinic. While at Faulkner Law, he received the Martin Luther King Jr. Spirit Honors Award from The Montgomery Advertiser in 2009, was named an Honorary Member of the Montgomery County District Attorney’s Office, and was named Professor of the Year in 2012.
Dean Baker holds degrees in political science and ministry from Harding University. After graduating from Vanderbilt University Law School in 2000, he returned to his home state of Mississippi where he had a diverse trial and appellate practice in complex litigation with Watkins & Eager in Jackson after a stint with Phelps Dunbar. He also taught as an adjunct at Belhaven University in Jackson.
Dean Baker speaks and writes regularly on legal education, professional formation, public interest lawyering, and social justice. He is a mediator and teaches strategic negotiation. He edits the Clinical Law Prof Blog and is actively involved with the Clinical Legal Education Association and the AALS Section on Clinical Legal Education. He has served as a director and counsel for several nonprofits devoted to human rights, social justice, and community development, and he is active in church service and leadership. He is a 2025 Fellow of the Fred D. Gray Institute for Civil and Human Rights.
Dean Baker is a member of the Alabama, California, and Mississippi bar associations.