Jeff Baird ’92
By day, he’s an attorney for the federal government but after hours Jeff Baird ’92 is a guitar playing singer in a Seattle-area folk band.
His day job and night life are not as far apart as they might seem.
Not that making music is part of his current duties as assistant regional counsel for the Social Security Administration (other than office parties). But before attending YLS, Baird did tenants’ rights and job development work for several years in Navajo communities and in California — and used song-writing and singing as part of his outreach and organizing work.
When he subsequently decided to go to law school, he says, “I wanted to go to Yale both because it’s the best place to learn analytical argument and because its approach is policy-oriented — you look at how rules fit into systems and from there into a way of life.”
Now, as lead 9th Circuit attorney in the Social Security office in Seattle, Baird deals constantly with rules and systems. “I work on everything,” he says. “Disability litigation; agency opinions; personnel matters....I’ve made over thirty oral arguments and written over a hundred briefs for the Ninth Circuit. Sometimes we contest claims” — he mentions a case in which a woman applied for survivors’ benefits for a child conceived using frozen sperm after the husband’s death — “but often we work with opposing counsel to find solutions more favorable to a claimant.”
Baird is a beneficiary of the YLS Careers Option Assistance Program (COAP) program, which provides loan repayment funds for those going into public service. He says, “The message I got is that public service is a worthy use of a Yale education. For that matter, so is playing folk music.”
His day job and night life are not as far apart as they might seem.
Not that making music is part of his current duties as assistant regional counsel for the Social Security Administration (other than office parties). But before attending YLS, Baird did tenants’ rights and job development work for several years in Navajo communities and in California — and used song-writing and singing as part of his outreach and organizing work.
When he subsequently decided to go to law school, he says, “I wanted to go to Yale both because it’s the best place to learn analytical argument and because its approach is policy-oriented — you look at how rules fit into systems and from there into a way of life.”
Now, as lead 9th Circuit attorney in the Social Security office in Seattle, Baird deals constantly with rules and systems. “I work on everything,” he says. “Disability litigation; agency opinions; personnel matters....I’ve made over thirty oral arguments and written over a hundred briefs for the Ninth Circuit. Sometimes we contest claims” — he mentions a case in which a woman applied for survivors’ benefits for a child conceived using frozen sperm after the husband’s death — “but often we work with opposing counsel to find solutions more favorable to a claimant.”
Baird is a beneficiary of the YLS Careers Option Assistance Program (COAP) program, which provides loan repayment funds for those going into public service. He says, “The message I got is that public service is a worthy use of a Yale education. For that matter, so is playing folk music.”