Douglas Baird is the Harry A. Bigelow Distinguished Service Professor of Law at the University of Chicago Law School. He graduated from Stanford Law School in 1979. At Stanford he was elected to the Order of the Coif and served as the Managing Editor of the Stanford Law Review. He received his B.A. in English summa cum laude from Yale College in 1975. Before joining the faculty in 1980, he was a law clerk to Judge Shirley M. Hufstedler and Judge Dorothy W. Nelson, both of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit.
Mr. Baird served as Dean of the Law School from 1994 to 1999. His research and teaching interests focus on corporate reorganizations and contracts.