Eric Baxter

Eric Baxter joined Becket as senior counsel in 2011 and has since built an expansive practice defending religious liberty nationwide. He served as lead counsel in Mahmoud v. Taylor, securing a 6-3 U.S. Supreme Court victory protecting parents’ rights to opt their children out of public school instruction that violates their religious beliefs. His other case victories include a Ninth Circuit decision preserving the historic “Big Mountain Jesus” statue, which has stood on Forest Service land  for more than sixty years (FFRF v. Weber), a Third Circuit ruling protecting a county’s historical seal with a Latin cross on it (FFRF v. Lehigh County), Eighth Circuit decisions securing the right of religious student groups to require their leaders to affirm their faith (BLinC v. University of Iowa and InterVarsity Christian Fellowship v. University of Iowa), and a DC Circuit ruling upholding the right of Sikhs to serve in the Marine Corps with their articles of faith intact (Singh v. Berger).

Eric has frequently appeared in the national media to discuss religious liberty issues, including on CNN, Fox & Friends, C-SPAN, and the Ingrahm Angle, and has been quoted in many major newspapers and other print media, including the New York Times, Washington Post, and LA Times.

Before joining Becket, Eric was a partner at Arent Fox LLP in Washington, DC, where he maintained a complex commercial litigation practice. In 2007, he was awarded the Albert E. Arent Pro Bono Award for his work representing parents adopting a total of seven children from the DC foster-care system.

Eric clerked for the Honorable Robert H. Cleland in the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Michigan (Detroit). He has a B.A. in Russian Literature and Linguistics from Brigham Young University and speaks both Russian and Spanish. He and his wife have seven children, two grandchildren, and an amateur family bluegrass band.