Baker, Thomas E.

Positions

Professor, College of Law , Academic Affairs

bakerth@fiu.edu

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biography

With over four decades of law teaching experience, Professor Baker is a nationally-recognized constitutionalist who has received numerous awards for his teaching, including the first-ever Pioneer Award for his commitment and dedication to students from the FIU Student Bar Association in 2004. Since then, students have voted him “Professor of the Year” multiple times. He received the FIU Top Scholar Award in 2012 and the FIU Faculty Recognition Award in 2010.
Before coming to the FIU College of Law as a member of the founding faculty in 2002, Professor Baker held the James Madison Chair in constitutional law that Congress endowed at Drake University Law School to commemorate the bicentennial of the U.S. Constitution. From 1985 to 1987, he worked at the Supreme Court of the United States; first as a Judicial Fellow and then as Acting Administrative Assistant to Chief Justice William H. Rehnquist.

From 1979 to 1998, Professor Baker was a member of the faculty at Texas Tech University School of Law, where he held the Alvin R. Allison Distinguished Professorship and received every teaching award the law school and the University conferred. He was the Distinguished Fulbright Professor of American Constitutional Law at the National and Kapodistrian University of Greece in 1992. He served on the Board of Editors of the Journal of Supreme Court History from 1991 to 1993. He was a visiting professor at the Fredric G. Levin College of Law at the University of Florida and at the Marshall-Wythe School of Law at the College of William & Mary.

By appointment of the Chief Justice, Professor Baker was a member of the Committee on Rules of Practice and Procedure from 1990 to 1995, for which he received a formal Commendation for Distinguished Service from the Judicial Conference of the United States. He was the recipient of the Bicentennial of the Constitution Award in Legal Education in 1987. He served on the Board of Directors of the American Judicature Society from 2000 to 2002. He was elected a Fellow in the American Academy of Appellate Lawyers in 2004 and was designated a life member of the American Law Institute in 2009. He was designated a Fellow of the American Bar Foundation in 2011. He was on the Legal Policy Advisory Board of the Washington Legal Foundation from 1998 to 2012. From 2012 to 2015, he served on the Advisory Committee of the Journal of Legal Education. He is a biographee in Who’s Who in America, Who’s Who in American Law, Who’s Who Among American Teachers, and the Directory of American Scholars, et alia.

Professor Baker publishes commentaries and is frequently quoted in the national media as an expert in constitutional law and the federal courts. He has appeared on Slate.com, NPR, Law.com, CNN’s Burden of Proof, C-SPAN, and numerous legal education programs for lawyers and judges.

Professor Baker has authored twelve books, including two leading law school casebooks and the popular “Nutshell” on Constitutional Law. He has published more than 100 scholarly articles in leading journals and law reviews, including Harvard, Michigan, UCLA, Iowa, Emory, Kansas, Wake Forest, Arizona, Florida, Georgia, Washington & Lee, William & Mary, and Florida State, as well as essays in A.B.A. Journal, American Journal of Legal History, Journal of Legal Education, Constitutional Commentary, Judicature, Hastings Constitutional Law Quarterly, Green Bag 2d, and William & Mary Bill of Rights Journal. He served on the advisory panel for Garner’s Modern American Usage 3d Edition and Black’s Law Dictionary 9th Edition.

After graduating from law school, Professor Baker clerked for a judge on the United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit. His law school recognitions included: U.S. Department of Justice Honors Program, Moot Court Board, Law Review Board, High Honors, Order of the Coif, Phi Kappa Phi Honor Society, and Omicron Delta Kappa National Leadership Society.