Tom Baker (professor)
Tom Baker (born 1959) is professor of law and a scholar of insurance law at the University of Pennsylvania Law School.
Education
Tom Baker holds both a BA (1982) and a JD (1986) from Harvard University.
Professional career
Baker clerked for Judge Juan R. Torruella of the United States Court of Appeals for the First Circuit. He then practiced with the firm of Covington and Burling in Washington, DC. He served as an Associate Counsel for the Independent Counsel investigating the Iran-Contra affair.
Before joining Penn Law in 2008, he was Connecticut Mutual Professor of Law and director of the Insurance Law Center at the University of Connecticut.
His research explores insurance, risk, and responsibility in a wide variety of settings, using methods and perspectives drawn from economics, sociology, and history, as well as law.
He is co-founder of the Insurance and Society Study Group, an informal association of scholars from law, humanities and the social sciences who write about risk and insurance. Baker is regularly involved as a consultant in high-stakes insurance projects and litigation.
Professor Baker is currently the Reporter for the forthcoming Restatement of the Law, Liability Insurance published by the American Law Institute.
Books
- Embracing Risk: The Changing Culture of Insurance and Responsibility (contributing editor, with Jonathan Simon; 2002)
- Insurance Law and Policy: Cases, Materials, and Problems (2003)
- The Medical Malpractice Myth (2005)