Leonard M. Baynes
Dean, Hugh Roy and Lillie Cranz Cullen
Distinguished Chair, and Professor of Law
Leonard M. Baynes, currently the longest serving law dean in Texas, is the ninth dean of the University of Houston Law Center and a nationally recognized communications law scholar with expertise in business and FCC regulation. He leads the Law Center, overseeing nearly 800 J.D. and LL.M. students, almost 60 full-time faculty, 150 adjunct professors, and more than 100 staff members, as well as 14 centers, institutes, programs, and over 11 clinical programs.
Dean Baynes made history when he was appointed the UH Law Center’s first dean of African descent in 2014. He is a first-generation college student whose parents immigrated to the U.S from St. Vincent and the Grenadines.
Under his leadership, the Law Center raised $93 million for the ultramodern John M. O’Quinn Law Building. The 180,000-square-foot, five-story facility is the newest law school building in Texas and among the newest in the nation, featuring modern amenities and spaces named in honor of alumni from every background and geographic region.
Dean Baynes emphasizes the importance of high academic admissions standards at the Law Center. The 2025 entering class set the record for the highest median undergraduate GPA at 3.79 and the highest median LSAT of 163 in the school’s history. He established Dean’s List and launched a first-year reception celebrating students in the top 30% of the class after the first semester.
A strong advocate for alumni and community engagement, Dean Baynes regularly hosts receptions with law alumni worldwide—from Houston, other major U.S. cities, Mexico City, and Calgary. He has strengthened connections with the legal community by partnering with the Houston Bar Association on programs, showcasing the Law Center’s accomplishments through presentations, and engaging law firm partners and corporate counsel in meaningful dialogue.
Dean Baynes also launched a Community Service Program during orientation, giving first-year students the opportunity to get to know each other, connect with Houston and the UH Law Center community, and address community needs. He has increased opportunities for school-funded, public service internships both at home and abroad, and revamped the "Sondock Jurist in Residence" program, bringing in judges and others legal leaders to campus to lecture, lead classroom discussions, and inspire students.
Committed to expanding access to legal education, Dean Baynes oversaw several innovations in Law Center admissions, including the 3+3 Program with UH Honors College, the UH Law Express Program and the acceptance of GRE scores as an alternative to the LSAT. Under his guidance, the UH Law Center also created a joint J.D.-LL.M. program that allows students to receive both degrees in less time than if pursued separately. He also initiated the race neutral, ethnically neutral, and gender neutral award-winning UHLC Pre-Law Pipeline Programs that help prepare first-generation and low-income students for law school. Students who participate in the UHLC Pre-Law Pipeline Programs experience, on average, median LSAT score increases of 6 to14 points.
During his deanship, 20 new tenure track faculty and 11 promotion-eligible non-tenure track faculty have been added. Twenty faculty members were published in the top 30 law reviews in the last three years, and approximately 15 faculty are members of the prestigious American Law Institute. Baynes created the position of assistant dean for faculty development to provide mentorship opportunities and support for faculty. He also launched during his tenure, Briefcase, weekly one-minute radio segments on KUHF News 88.7 FM, highlighting timely legal issues while amplifying UH Law Center faculty expertise to listeners across the community.
To expand the Law Center’s global reach, Dean Baynes established the position of Executive Director of Global and Graduate Programs, appointed a director for the Center for U.S. and Mexican Law, and hired two tenure-track faculty specializing in international economic and human rights law. Under his leadership, the Law Center forged partnerships with several international institutions, including Universidad Anáhuac in Mexico and Prince Mohammad Bin Fahd University in Saudi Arabia. These efforts earned the UH Law Center recognition for “Achievement in Global Legal Skills Education” at the Fourteenth Global Legal Skills Conference in Arizona in 2019.
Under Dean Baynes, the University of Houston Law Center has earned numerous awards and honors, including the National Bar Association's Presidential Leadership Award and eight consecutive HEED awards. The Law Center Pre-Law Pipeline Program received the ABA Raymond Pace and Sadie Tanner Mossell Alexander Award in 2019 and the CLEO EDGE Award in 2018.
Dean Baynes too has been widely recognized for his leadership and impact, including being named one of the nation’s 100 most influential lawyers of color, receiving the Houston Lawyer Association’s Roberson L. King Excellence in Education Award, the Association of American Law Schools’ Clyde Ferguson Award, and Columbia Law School’s 2022 Paul Robeson Award and the National Black Pre-Law Conference John Mercer Langston Legal Education Leadership Award in 2019. He has also been inducted into the Minority Media & Telecommunications Council Hall of Fame and honored by the New York Bar Association and the ABA for his work in legal education. He is serving a three-year term on the AALS’ Executive Committee.
He previously served as Professor of Law and the inaugural director of the Ronald H. Brown Center at St. John's University School of Law. He was also scholar-in-residence at the Federal Communications Commission, in-house counsel at NYNEX Corp, and an associate at the Wall Street office of Gaston and Snow LLP. He is admitted to practice in New York and Massachusetts.
A prolific scholar, Baynes co-authored the casebook "Telecommunications Law: Convergence and Competition" published by Wolters Kluwer and has authored more than 25 law review articles and book chapters on corporate law, communications law, and other topics. He has also served as an expert witness for the FCC Federal Advisory Committee on broadcast ownership.
Dean Baynes earned his B.S. from New York University and J.D. and M.B.A. from Columbia University, where he received the Earl Warren Scholarship and the COGME Fellowship and served as associate editor of the Columbia Human Rights Law Review.
