Judge Caroline Baker
Mediator, Arbitrator, Senior District Judge (Ret.)
A fifth-generation Texan, Caroline Baker served the citizens of Harris County as a judge for 21 years before retiring at the end of 2018 as a senior judge. Prior to the bench, she was a partner in the litigation firm of McFall, Sherwood & Sheehy. A graduate of Princeton University and the University of Texas School of Law, she is Board Certified in Personal Injury Trial Law and has been elected to membership in the American Board of Trial Advocates, an honorary organization of plaintiff and defense lawyers dedicated to the preservation of the right to trial by jury and excellence in the legal profession. Candidates are nominated and elected by the members of the organization and must have a proven record as a trial lawyer. Judge Baker is consistently rated “Outstanding” in the Houston Bar Association Polls and received the 2017 “Trial Judge of the Year” Award from the Texas Association of Civil Trial and Appellate Specialists, as well as the Mexican American Bar Association of Texas 2018 Service Award for “Outstanding Public Service in the Community as a District Court Judge.”
She also is a mediator with a certificate from the AA White Dispute Resolution Center and has served as an adjunct professor in Trial Advocacy at the University of Houston Law Center. Strongly committed to professional service, Caroline serves and/or has served on several committees of the State Bar of Texas, including the Committee on Judicial Ethics, Judicial Section. She has served as Past President of TACTAS and of the ADR Section of the HBA, and has been a member and Chair of a State Bar Grievance Committee.
Caroline is steadfast in her commitment to education and mentorship. She serves as an HBA mentor and devotes her time to mentoring aspiring lawyers through internships in the court, as well as judging mock trials and mock hearings for students from the Houston law schools. She was instrumental in developing and instituting the Young Lawyers in the Courtroom Program, which is committed to ensuring that young lawyers get speaking opportunities in the courtroom through hearings and trials. She also served as Co-Chair of Houston’s inaugural Teachers Law School, sponsored by ABOTA. Teachers Law School is a program for middle school and high school government and social studies teachers designed to expose them to all areas of the judicial system so that they have the tools to inform and engage their students. In addition, Caroline is Co-Founder and Co-Chair of the Youth Leadership Forum held for the last 14 years at Rice University, with the dedicated mission of “Engage, Educate, Empower – By Service We Lead.” She also is Co-Editor of the Texas Business Litigation treatise, now in its fourth edition.
Caroline is a graduate of Leadership Houston (where she received the Patrice Johnson Alumnus Award for Leadership), the American Leadership Forum, the Center for Houston's Future, and was a member of the Connecting Communities Initiative at the Kinder Institute for Urban Research at Rice University. She has been honored by Aspiring Youth with the "Star for Girls' Education" Award, was selected by Texas Executive Women as a "Woman on the Move," and by Houston Woman magazine as one of the "50 Most Influential Women in Houston." Equally committed to community service, she serves and/or has served on the Board of Directors of many non-profit organizations, including BakerRipley., Girls Incorporated of Greater Houston (Former Chair), The Heritage Society (former Vice President), Hobby Center Foundation, Leadership Houston (Former Chair), Houston BARC Foundation (former Secretary); on the Advisory Board of The Chinquapin School; as a Founding Executive Committee Member of the Richard Tapia Center for Excellence and Equity; and as a member of Posse Houston Leadership Council. Above all, Judge Baker is devoted to her family – her husband, Bruce Hurley, and three children, Grace (17), Emma (14), and Bruce III (13).