Wednesday, April 22, 2020
Yale Law School 1990: Jamie Baker
I'm devoting Wednesdays on the blog to profiling my fellow members of the Yale Law class of 1990. It's fascinating to see the many different paths people have taken from the same small place.
Jamie Baker, like a lot of our class, was double Yale, coming to law school with a degree from Yale College. He had the wisdom to take some time off in between, though, and spent that time as an infantry officer in the United States Marine Corps. By the time he got to law school, he had a lot more life experience than many of us.
After law school he returned to the military (and, in fact, did not retire from the reserves until 2000). He served in a variety of roles, including as a legal advisor in both the State Department and the National Security Counsel.
In 2000, he was named to the Court of Appeals for the Armed Forces, where he served until 2015-- the last four years as the chief judge of that court.
Currently, he teaches at Syracuse, where he is also the Director of the Institute for Security Policy and Law. He was also appointed by President Obama to the Public Interest Declassification Board, which promotes transparency in U.S. national security policy.
This is a pretty good speech:
