Meet Our Dean
After nearly a decade in legal practice and nineteen years of service and teaching in higher education, Miriam Baer joins California Western School of Law as its Dean and President. From 2022–2025, she served as the Vice Dean and a Centennial Professor of Law at Brooklyn Law School. During her tenure at Brooklyn, Baer taught and published extensively at the intersection of business law and criminal law and was a frequent commentator on white-collar crime and its enforcement.
Dean Miriam H. Baer
An oft cited and well-known scholar, Dean Baer is the author of Myths and Misunderstandings in White-Collar Crime (Cambridge University Press), her 2023 book examining the reasons why the public so often misunderstands the legal system tasked with prohibiting and enforcing the nation’s fraud and corruption laws. Baer’s book has been highlighted and discussed on numerous podcasts and is the subject of several academic book reviews. She is also a co-author of a leading casebook and study aid in white-collar crime, and she has contributed chapters to several of the leading scholarly compilations on criminal law, corporate theory, and corporate compliance.
In addition to her book contributions, Baer has published over thirty articles and essays in leading law review publications, including the Columbia Law Review, Virginia Law Review, Texas Law Review, Michigan Law Review, Northwestern University Law Review, Minnesota Law Review, and the Yale Law Journal Forum.
Dean Baer is an elected member of the American Law Institute and a fellow of the American Bar Foundation. Prior to entering academia, Dean Baer served as an assistant general counsel for compliance with Verizon and prosecuted crimes as an Assistant U.S. Attorney in the Criminal Division of the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of New York. She began her career clerking for the Honorable Jane R. Roth, United States Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit, and spent two years practicing litigation for the law firm of Cravath, Swaine and Moore.
Dean Baer is delighted to have moved to the west coast and looks forward to exploring San Diego and its neighboring communities.
Dean's Office
The Dean's Office, located on the second floor of California Western School of Law's administrative building, is home to Dean and President & Professor of Law Miriam Baer.