Two new full-time faculty members and a new Associate Dean started at the University of Dayton School of Law for the Fall 2026 semester.
The new faculty members join UDSL as the law school continues to grow in its number of students and their credentials. The 2026 entering class is at more than 180 students, the largest in the last 15 years. The median LSAT score of the class is 158, which is also the highest in that time.
“As more students decide to choose Dayton as the school to get their legal education, it is important for us to maintain the individualized attention and community-feel that make this such a wonderful place to learn the law,” says Dean Christopher Roederer. “This talented group of professors will help us do just that as we prepare our students to be lawyers and leaders in their communities.”
Associate Dean Jeffrey Schmitt and Professors Erin Baldwin and Jennifer L. Brinkley join the seven full-time faculty members added last year.
Learn more about each new faculty member by reading their profile or visiting their online bio.
Associate Dean Jeffrey Schmitt
Dean Jeffrey Schmitt returns to the faculty as the Associate Dean for Programs, Faculty, and Academic Affairs after spending a year on the faculty at the University of Toledo College of Law. Before his time in Toledo, Dean Schmitt was on the faculty at UDSL from 2016 to 2025 and served as Assistant Dean for Graduate Programs from January 2020 to May 2025.
Earlier in his career, he worked as an associate at Jones Day in Cleveland and clerked for Judge Susan H. Black of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit and Judge Timothy J. Corrigan of the U.S. District Court for the Middle District of Florida. Dean Schmitt graduated from the University of Virginia School of Law, where he served on the executive board of the Virginia Law Review. He received his bachelor's degree from Miami University in Oxford, Ohio.
Professor Erin Baldwin joins the faculty having previously worked as The Ohio State University Moritz College of Law's Director of Academic Excellence. While at Moritz she developed and delivered the law school's academic success and bar preparation programs. She also taught the law school's early bar prep course, Legal Analysis Workshop.
Prior to entering academia, Professor Baldwin worked as a litigator in New York and Ohio. She also clerked for the Honorable Judge James S. Gwin of the United States District Court for the Northern District of Ohio.
Professor Jennifer L. Brinkley
Professor Jennifer L. Brinkley joins the faculty from the University of West Florida in Pensacola, where she was tenured and promoted as an Associate Professor in the Legal Studies Pre-Law program. Prior to joining academia, Professor Brinkley worked at a firm in Bowling Green, Kentucky and then as a solo practitioner, focusing on family law and criminal defense. She then served as an Assistant Warren County Attorney, prosecuting criminal cases, child support, guardianship cases, and juvenile offenses.
She writes in the areas of family law and criminal law and has a book forthcoming on October 20, 2026, from the University of California Press titled "Justice Was Her Calling: The Fierce and Fascinating Life of Dorothy Kenyon."